"@Reference doesn't work with new OSGI R6 annotation" -- Not TRUE! I have never seen a situation in 6.4 when @Reference returns null. For example, in the DataSourcePool article- this annotation works perfectly to inject a DataSourcePool instance.Adobe Experience Manager Help | Querying MySQL data us...
See this AEM doc that answers this - in the doc - it says to use nt:folder. Run Modes So Adobe recommends that you go with what is documented. Hope this helps...