[j_s]

I don't disagree; I was only trying to address the 'test suite gets very slow' part rather than the 'unit tests should not hit the database' part.

If performance wasn't an issue, the convenience of auto-created objects would mean more 'unit' tests (edit: usually closer to integration tests) that wouldn't exist otherwise. Sure it's best to de-couple things, but there's room for something between no [unit] tests at all and perfect unit tests.