Haven't thought hard about this, but my gut instinct tells me the perf benefits of String-only Fqns may be obtainable without requiring only strings. Like you said, create Fqns only via factory methods. Factory detects the string-only situation and optimizes based on that. If not string-only, no optimization. More sophisticated approach segments the Fqn into the typical String-only leading portion and the non-String trailing portion. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4135115#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...