Steve Ebersole, for scenario #1, what are your thoughts? Is it a good idea to automatically handle the secondPass updates' dirtiness in EntityEntry#isUnequivocallyNonDirty (maybe by checking the loadedState, etc)? Or, simply add javadocs and enforce that conditions causing secondPass updates (circular references, cascading, etc.) need to be explicitly handled in CustomEntityDirtinessStrategy impls? Other alternatives?