> there must be a good reason why this is missing from jdbc ?

I guess Sun just did not want to polute the code with such methods. Even
more, starting Java 5.0 the issue is gone due to autoboxing.

> is it a good idea to do this, or is there a better way ?

If you're sure that the column is declared as INTEGER, you can use
getObject(int) method. Otherwise you have to construct it yourself.

Roman