The GROUP BY still isn't exposed directly, but neither are joins or subqueries. The rules that make up what should be included in the group by are fairly elaborate. However, writing custom expressions will now allow you to craft some pretty cool SQL, and allow the sub-expression to specify whether it should contribute to GROUP BY or not.
Disclaimer: I did a lot of the work for query expressions in 1.8. The ORM team is expanding, and people are actively working on bringing more powerful features to the ORM.
The GROUP BY still isn't exposed directly, but neither are joins or subqueries. The rules that make up what should be included in the group by are fairly elaborate. However, writing custom expressions will now allow you to craft some pretty cool SQL, and allow the sub-expression to specify whether it should contribute to GROUP BY or not.
Disclaimer: I did a lot of the work for query expressions in 1.8. The ORM team is expanding, and people are actively working on bringing more powerful features to the ORM.