Can this be done more efficient? (XML generating code)

I'm working on my graduate project and I had stumbled upon a somewhat dilemma, I've managed to solve it with some workarounds but I have my doubts that this is the most efficient way to deal with this problem.

I'm writing a class to deal with the Plesk API and making it as flexible as possible for easy use.

Here is the function for generating the XML that will be send out as request:

private function emailCreatePacket($domain, $params){
    // Create new XML document.
    $xml = new DomDocument('1.0', 'UTF-8');
    $xml->formatOutput = true;

    // Create packet
    $packet = $xml->createElement('packet');
    $packet->setAttribute('version', '1.4.2.0');
    $xml->appendChild($packet);
    $mail = $xml->createElement('mail');
    $packet->appendChild($mail);
    $create = $xml->createElement('create');
    $mail->appendChild($create);
    $filter = $xml->createElement('filter');
    $create->appendChild($filter);
    $domain_id = $xml->createElement('domain_id', $domain->id);
    $filter->appendChild($domain_id);
    $mailname = $xml->createElement('mailname');
    $filter->appendChild($mailname);
    foreach ($params as $key => $value) { 
        $node = $mailname;
        if(strpos($key, ':') !== false){
            $split = explode(':', $key);
            $key = $split[1];
            $node = ${$split[0]};
            if(!isset(${$split[0]})){
                ${$split[0]} = $xml->createElement($split[0]);
                $mailname->appendChild(${$split[0]});
            }
            $xmlelement = $xml->createElement($key, $value);
            ${$split[0]}->appendChild($xmlelement);
        }else{
            $xmlelement = $xml->createElement($key, $value); 
            $node->appendChild($xmlelement);
        }
    }
    return $xml->saveXML();
}

And here's my public function.

public function createEmail($host, $domain, $params){
    $curl = $this->curlInit($host);
    $packet = $this->emailCreatePacket($domain, $params);
    echo $packet;
    $response = $this->sendRequest($curl, $packet);
    echo $response;
    if($this->parseResponse($response)){
        return true;
    }
}

Here are the functions called:

private function curlInit($host)
    {
        $security = new Security();
        $password = $security->decode($host['host_pass']);
        $curl = curl_init();
        curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, "https://{$host['host_address']}:{$host['host_port']}/{$host['host_path']}");
        curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
        curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST,           true);
        curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
        curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, false);    
        curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER,
             array("HTTP_AUTH_LOGIN: {$host['host_user']}",
                    "HTTP_AUTH_PASSWD: {$password}",
                    "HTTP_PRETTY_PRINT: TRUE",
                    "Content-Type: text/xml")
        );    
        return $curl;
    }

private function sendRequest($curl, $packet){
        curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $packet);
        $result = curl_exec($curl);
        if (curl_errno($curl)) {
            $error  = curl_error($curl);
            $errorcode = curl_errno($curl);
            curl_close($curl);
            throw new Exception("Er is iets mis gegaan: <br /><br /> Foutcode: " . $errorcode . "<br /> Foutmelding: " . $error );
        }
        curl_close($curl);
        return $result;
    }

private function parseResponse($response){
    $xml = new SimpleXMLElement($response);
    $status = $xml->xpath('//status');
    if($status[0] == "error"){
        $errorcode = $xml->xpath('//errcode');
        $errortext = $xml->xpath('//errtext');
        throw new Exception("Er is iets mis gegaan: <br /><br /> Foutcode: ". $errorcode[0] . "<br /> Foutmelding: " . $errortext[0]);
    }else{
        return $response;
    }
}

And here is the code I use to call my function:

<?php

/**
 * @author Jeffro
 * @copyright 2011
 */

require('init.php');

$security = new Security();

if($security->sslactive()){
    try
    {
        $hosts = new Hosts();
        $host = $hosts->getHost("192.168.1.60");
        $pleskapi = new PleskApi();
        $client = $pleskapi->getClientInfo($host, 'janbham');
        $domain = $pleskapi->getDomainInfo($host, "lol.nl");
    $params = array('name' => 'ohecht', 'mailbox:enabled' => 'true', 'mailbox:quota' => '100000000', 'alias' => 'aapjesrollen', 'password' => 'testmail', 'permissions:manage_drweb' => 'true');
    $pleskapi->createEmail($host, $domain, $params);
    }
    catch (Exception $ex)
    {
        echo $ex->GetMessage();
    }
}else{
    ?>
    SSL needs to be active
    <?php
}

?>

The problem was regarding the structure the API uses with it deeper nesting everytime (which I solved now using : as a delimiter)

I hope you guys can check it out for me :)

Edit: Can I bump? :P Bump v2 Bumping again because I want more critic~