EJB 2.x was too complex. Developers were using additional tools to make it easier.
XDoclet (Attribute oriented programming): http://xdoclet.sourceforge.net
Hibernate for persistence: http://www.hibernate.org
The main focus for this specification is on Ease Of Development (EoD). One major way this has been simplified is by using metadata attribute annotations suppported by JDK 5.0.
Simplifying EJB development should produce a wider range of Java EE developers.