It seems you would want to support both forms anyways no?

Yes, probably that makes sense to simplify the non-projection case.

Also doesn't SQLQuery support pagination methods?

It does; My latest pull request actually adds support for this (see OGM-512).

So this issue is primarily about supporting projections atm., but it also opens the door for native update queries e.g. via MongoDB's findAndUpdate() API and SQLQuery#executeUpdate()