Are there any plans to include a dynamic fetch depth for certain find queries? I would LOVE to set my default fetch depth to zero (0) for performance, but programatically increase it to 2 or 3 for *some* of my find() methods.

you can programmatically manipulate the fetching strategies using "left join fetch" in HQL or by calling setFetchMode via the Criteria API.

Neither of the strategies you mention allow for the actual "depth" of the fetch to be manipulated, only IF a depth fetch is utilized.