The difference between xsession and xprofile is that xsession is exec'd and xprofile is sourced.
So with xprofile all commands after sourcing will still be exectued. This allows for instance
autostarting of applications while configuring the start of a window manager via configuration.nix.
That is, you can say
security.pam.services.sshd = { options... };
instead of
security.pam.services = [ { name = "sshd"; options... } ];
making it easier to override PAM settings from other modules.
