[R-sig-Geo] creating spatial metadata: best tools/approach?

[Howard, Tim G (DEC)]

All, 
I need to create XML metadata for some of my outputs (mostly rasters) following the US government standard (FGDC):

https://www.fgdc.gov/standards/projects/FGDC-standards-projects/metadata/base-metadata/index_html

In researching what my options are in R, I have found EML:

https://github.com/ropensci/EML

and the spMetadata function in plotKML:

http://plotkml.r-forge.r-project.org/spMetadata.html

and, of course, I could use the XML package to simply build and write my own xml. 

https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/XML/index.html

Does this group have any suggestions as to the most robust and efficient way to accomplish this? Or positive or negative experiences to share? I'm tempted to just use the XML package as then I'll have the most control, but I don't want to be missing anything before I start down that path. 

Thanks in advance, 
Tim