In regards to coming up with something better than @ValidateReference (@VR), I do confess that I'm a bit stuck in the box. @VR seems to be so fundamental that when I realized I could use its capability, I was a bit surprised that it wasn't there – and nobody seemed to ask for it. ...Although I'd like this capability, I shutter to think that there would be a need for @ValidateDereference – similar to the C language reference/dereference pointer.

It seems that the @Valid is the class level validator while the @ValidateReference (maybe if it was renamed to @ValidProperty or @ValidValue with the same arguments as @VR) would be the Property level validator. The respective methods validator.validateValue(...) or validator.validateProperty(...) simply aren't enough for Enterprise level validation.