[BiteCode_dev]

Yes, starting with Hibernate as a idea of what ORM provides is terrible.

ORM have plenty of flaws, but it's like buying screws on wish and saying using a screwdriver is a terrible experience.

[bzzzt]

Hibernate is not that bad. The problem with ORMs in the Java web space is lots of people used them as an 'extreme DRY' solution to link database 'objects' to the front-end which breaks separation of concerns and forces you to use the same model or resort to ugly hacks for further mapping. In a properly separated application it works fine.