Refactor code- and database-design for use of UUIDs, Version-fields, equal() and hashCode() Methods

As I was looking for some good practices for hibernate I came across this article saying that it is very important to implement equals() and hashCode() methods very carefully... Unfortunately I did not come across this article at the time I started using hibernate.. so there are some bigger changes in the database-design and code-base to make.

http://onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2006/09/13/dont-let-hibernate-steal-your-identity.html?page=1