Apex bracket escaping

final String PAYLOAD_ORIGINAL = 'abc<123>def';
final String PAYLOAD_ESCAPED = PAYLOAD_ORIGINAL.escapeXml();
final String XML = '<foo><bar>' + PAYLOAD_ESCAPED + '</bar></foo>';

//READER
String PAYLOAD_FROM_READER = '';
final XmlStreamReader reader = new XmlStreamReader(XML);
for(Integer i=0; i<2; i++) reader.next();
for(Integer i=0; i<5; i++){
    reader.next();
    PAYLOAD_FROM_READER += reader.getText();
}

//DOM
final Dom.Document doc = new Dom.Document();
doc.load(XML);
final String PAYLOAD_FROM_DOM = doc.getRootElement().getChildElement('bar',null).getText();
System.assertEquals(PAYLOAD_ORIGINAL,PAYLOAD_FROM_DOM);

System.debug(
    '\nPAYLOAD_ORIGINAL   : [' + PAYLOAD_ORIGINAL    + ']' +
    '\nPAYLOAD_ESCAPED    : [' + PAYLOAD_ESCAPED     + ']' +
    '\nXML                : [' + XML                 + ']' +
    '\nPAYLOAD_FROM_DOM   : [' + PAYLOAD_FROM_DOM    + ']' +
    '\nPAYLOAD_FROM_READER: [' + PAYLOAD_FROM_READER + ']' 
);

// Output will be:
// PAYLOAD_ORIGINAL   : [abc<123>def]
// PAYLOAD_ESCAPED    : [abc&lt;123&gt;def]
// XML                : [<foo><bar>abc&lt;123&gt;def</bar></foo>]
// PAYLOAD_FROM_READER: [abc<123>def]
// PAYLOAD_FROM_DOM   : [abc<123>def]