For what kind of thing? I not sure if I've *ever* used it, although it's been a year or so.
This is largely a matter of preference, but doesn't the list() method normally return an empty list? It just seems like you're making Hibernate *harder* to use, not easier.
I'd sure prefer a means of not having to build a map and list before every single query--to me it looks like you've eliminated the fluent query interface Hibernate provides and replaced it with what it was intended to fix.
You also force a null check
In any case, isn't setFirstResult() 0-based?