It is true that EJB has had a mixed reputation. While session and message-driven components have been used frequently enough and had a relatively high approval level, entity beans have been cast as the anchor that has dragged EJB down. It is owing largely to this fact that EJB has achieved its tarnished image in the eyes of some.
We actually considered renaming the persistence part to something else outside of EJB to distance it from the entity bean. In the end, of course, we did give it a name, Java Persistence API, but still kept it within EJB 3.0. Having its own name will allow us to separate JPA from EJB down the road, though.
So while I can't say that everybody will look at the new spec and see it for what it is, a major shift in developer productivity, I do think that the message is getting out bit by bit. Hopefully everyone here will help carry that message, now, as well
-Mike