OK, I'm still not quite in a working state. While the current problem isn't exactly a build problem, I'm not sure it makes sense to separate it from the current
thread's context....
Summary after current changes:
src/main/resources
-- applicationContext.xml
-- struts.xml
-- META-INF/persistence.xml
src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/web.xml
mvn jetty:run (or tomcat

eploy) both work suitable. Launching tomcat from the IDE can work if the following conditions are met 1) mvn install after any mvn clean and 2) the whole tomcat properties re-application as discussed above. (Both steps are needed to make sure that the resources/webapp files are copied to the correct place in the classpath/web context as appropriate.)
At this point I'm trying to setup a sample integration
test. From the
Better Builds with Maven book, it says the only way to add integration tests is to introduce a seperate maven module. Thus switching my project from currently a single module project to a multi-module one and I'm a little confused by how to wrap a higher level project around an existing project, without completely messing up eclips. I'm also a little uncomfortable introducing a seperate module jsut for integration tests, but if its an easy process, please let me know and I'll give it a go.
I've also tried creating acceptance tests as unit tests by using an embedded Jetty within the test case, allowing a self contained test environment. (Would need to then use includes/excludes to separate unit/integration tests into the test and integration-test phases... and probably a little bit of tweak to the pre-integration test phase to copy a few resource files around.) However this approach, is throwing an exception when starting Jetty (while Jetty works as standalone)
Here's the exception:
2007-09-13 22:51:53.148::WARN: Failed startup of context org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext@9ead8{,src/main/webapp}
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'org.springframework.orm.jpa.support.PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor' defined in class path resource [applicationContext.xml]: Initialization of bean failed; nested exception is java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.springframework.util.ClassUtils.getMostSpecificMethod(Ljava/lang/reflect/Method;Ljava/lang/Class

Ljava/lang/reflect/Method;
Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.springframework.util.ClassUtils.getMostSpecificMethod(Ljava/lang/reflect/Method;Ljava/lang/Class

Ljava/lang/reflect/Method;
Can you offer any advice for getting integration tests working under either appraoch?