> Would the autocommit support outlined above be pretty much what you want?

That would be surely great.
Further, what you said is right, for the unmanaged scenario the RA's default
ConnectionManager must be used: so why not use it in Driver.connect to
create the "un"managed connection? I think there should be no difference in
getting a connection through the Driver or through the DataSource, both
should rely on the current ConnectionManager.

Massimo