Ian,
Yes, you are still using a version of MVC. The main point is you've identified a workable
pattern. I use the same thing. Just because you're not using JSP's methods for accessing a bean doesn't mean you've broken the pattern. Patterns are, and should be, as independent from implementation as possible.
Actually, my first run at using JSPs I just posted to a
servlet, called a domain model class to get my database results back as a collection, then set the attribute into the request and forwarded to the JSP for display. In the JSP I just pulled an Enumeration out of the Vector and and looped through to get my results. My Vector was actually of Hashtable items, each one representing a row of the resultset. Here's a sample:
My next run at doing this will be to see if using JavaBeans in the Vector (or ArrayList?) would be worthwhile, or limit flexibility. I have the luxury of our dept. not having any HTML 'artistes' who do not program, so this pattern works great for us.
Something you might look up Service-To-Worker at the
Sun Java Center for another example. There's other patterns there that are useful as well, and like the one I stumbled upon and you did, too, patterns that aren't necessarily documented but are simple and useful.
Hope this helps!