Somehow this answered this question in another way.
On Head First
EJB Page 213
Q: I don't see why you can't call ejbRemove() on a bean when you're going to kill it.
A: First of all, you honestly expect me to bring a bean out of passivation just to kill it? Talk about a waste of overhead! Sheesh,
you should know better, if you care about performance.
This somehow said that, to call a ejbRemove() method, you have to activate the bean and this is a hit to the performance.