Application Initialization and Plug In Classes

I am about to start a project which requires a load of configuration information to be loaded on startup. I was thinking of using a Plug-In to load the information into these classes by parsing the xml configuration file. Much like what struts does in the framework for the struts-config.xml
What do the experts feel? Does anyone have any experience with this kinda set up? Are there any pitfalls/advantages to it? Any input is appreciated.