David,
Your implementation makes sound sense, having done some hibernate work recently.
I think though that this might be a risky approach to take on the exam.
Others have asked about using hibernate spring, eliminating entity beans etc...
The general feeling is that straying from
j2ee principles into open source land is something that might cause you to fail the exam.. This is all based on the instructions for the exam stating you must use technologies from the J2EE environment.
While I know Hibernate etc is a great, great, great way of doing the implementation, it doesn't so much pertain to the assignment...
If I were you, I might look more into Mark Cade's book and see how he implements a DAO/VO pattern..This would be a more acceptable approach to Sun I think since VO's can map to EJB's etc..
Any other thoughts?
-jason