I read in several places that org.w3c.dom.Element gets mapped to anyType and can be used in Document/Literal endpoints. However, I cannot seem to get a simply test endpoint (using JSR-181 EJB) to work.

Using JBoss 4.0.5.GA w/ JBossWS 1.0.4.GA

@EJB(name="PingBuildLinksEndPointBean", beanInterface=IPingBuildLinksEndPointBean.class, description="This is the ping description", beanName="PingBuildLinksEndPointBean")
@WebService(name="PingBuildLinksEndPoint")
@SOAPBinding(style = SOAPBinding.Style.DOCUMENT, use=SOAPBinding.Use.LITERAL)
@PortComponent(authMethod="BASIC", urlPattern="/test.ws",transportGuarantee="CONFIDENTIAL")
@RolesAllowed("BLDADM")
@SecurityDomain("BuildLinksWs")

/**
 * @author cboatwright
 */
public @Stateless class PingBuildLinksEndPointBean extends AbstractDatabaseSessionEndPoint
 implements IPingBuildLinksEndPointBean
{
 public PingBuildLinksEndPointBean()
 throws CreateException, BuildLinksException
 {
 super();
 }

 @WebMethod
 public Element elementPing(String arg0)
 throws BuildLinksFault
 {
 Element rv = null;

 log.debug("ignored arg0=" + arg0);

 try
 {
 rv = DOMUtils.parse("<helloWorld/>");
 }
 catch (IOException e)
 {
 throw new BuildLinksFault(e.getMessage());
 }

 return rv;
 }

I get the following exception (regardless of the length of the XML returned, the above example just has one node):

23:58:03,035 ERROR [[PingBuildLinksEndPointBean]] Servlet.service() for servlet PingBuildLinksEndPointBean threw exception
org.jboss.xb.binding.JBossXBRuntimeException: Failed to find read method or field for property '_value' in class org.apache.xerces.dom.DeferredElementNSImpl
 at org.jboss.xb.binding.introspection.ClassInfo.getFieldInfo(ClassInfo.java:81)
 at org.jboss.xb.binding.introspection.FieldInfo.getFieldInfo(FieldInfo.java:155)
 at org.jboss.xb.binding.sunday.marshalling.MarshallerImpl.getJavaValue(MarshallerImpl.java:1266)
 at org.jboss.xb.binding.sunday.marshalling.MarshallerImpl.getElementValue(MarshallerImpl.java:1284)
.. cut

Any advice on how to send back the result as a well-formed XML element? When I try just to do it as a string, all of the XML reserved characters get escaped ...