Nope. I have to admit it's a bit tedious to work with either array or Criteria everywhere in the doc, it would be better if Doctrine would enforce Criteria only from start to end :). I may do a check for looking where this method is used and if there are places where an array is used.

Having said that, can't people directly manipulate a persister outside of Doctrine? If that's the case, that would be a major BC :/.