Hey Steve Ebersole, looking at the code, I would say that getOverridenColumn is effectively returning not null if the user defines the column via @Column or equivalent.
But I supposed your test does not explicitly set the column so we are left with the logic in ComponentPropertyHolder.getOverriddenColumn which essentially uses the property name to infer a column name. Is that where the code passes in your test or is the code related to Ejb3Column.buildColumnFromAnnotation?

It seems I did place this placeholder and then totally forgot about it. I am not sure if the strategies should be responsible from handling this placeholder of if the caller of the strategy should purge that placeholder before calling the strategy. Do you remember what is the default column name from JPA in this specific situation?