There is potential for confusion or error (largely created by me) in that this statement and other function returns from the Config class -

When $bannerText is subsequently returned from the function, it actually returns a SimpleXMLElement object and not a string. Subsequent use of the returned object usually works in context, due to implicit casting to a string, but it can behave unexpectedly e.g. '==' comparison between two such returned values from different elements will fail even when the string values are the same.

It would be safer if all returns from Config.php were explicitly cast to strings or other type as and where appropriate.