In version 7.13 there is an option to prevent creating these association sublevels.
From the documentation:
To see the effect of this check box, consider a person with two dogs and a cat. When you do not select Include tags for associations, the XML looks like this:
<Person name="John">
<Dog name="Max" />
<Dog name="Rex" />
<Cat name="Chester" />
</Person>
When you do check Include tags for associations, the XML looks like this:
<Person name="John">
<Person_Dog>
<Dog name="Max" />
<Dog name="Rex" />
</Person_Dog>
<Person_Cat>
<Cat name="Chester" />
</Person_Cat>
</Person>