I noticed another small thing, and although not a big problem, I'd like to reference it. When dealing with shallow references, it should be possible, at least in theory, to work with hibernate proxy and not having to hit the database just to compare the id itself as per shallow reference definition... As of now, 3.3.2, I notice each commit involving a change in an Entity referring another one with ShallowReference on a Proxy triggers the load of the proxy... Thx for your time.