I'm well aware of the fact that phantom power doesn't involve much current. Next time I'll put a bunch of emoticons after I write something like that to make it more obvious I'm not being serious As for the possibility of poorly insulated terminals or wiring being shorted out goes that just emphasizes that it's a good idea to design the battery arrangement to eliminate that possibility. I know of someone who a few years back lost a glider and trailer due to something falling across the battery terminals when he had it stored in the trailer during transit. It wore through the insulation as he was driving and shorted the battery, setting the whole works on fire.

XLR's wouldn't be my FIRST choice but they were already standardized on when I joined the club and they haven't caused any problems. My first choice would be MIL spec connectors (since we're talking about installing things on aircraft it would make sense to me to use aircraft hardware) if I were to do things from scratch.

By the way, if you want to see a really interesting mismatch in the audio world facilitated by the use of identical connectors for very different applications you should see how well it works out when someone connects a 1/4" speaker out from a Hiwatt custom 100 to a 1/4" input on a P.A. mixer!