Support for filtering complex attribute value

I have a problem trying to filter complex attribute value from a complex feature.
Ideally, the filter should be unmapped first to its simple feature form, eg.

Query:
feature type: CGI_TermValue
filter: [ gml:name = significant ]
[properties: ALL ]

Unmapped to this:

Query:
feature type: CGITermValue
filter: [ strTrim([getID()]) = significant ]
[properties: ALL ]

Then there's no problem. However, in my case, I don't have the simple features, as the complex features are adapted from a web service.
So I have to filter the complex attribute directly.
The value returned is the value collection of the complex attribute, which when compared to the string value, would return false.

In FilterAbstract, there's this hack:

protected Object eval(org.opengis.filter.expression.Expression expression, Object object) {
if( expression == null ) return null;
Object value = expression.evaluate( object );
//HACK as this method is used internally for filter
//evaluation comparisons, etc, they work over the
//contents (i.e. comparing an attexpresion with a literal)
//so, lacking a better way of doing so, I'm putting this
//check here
if(value instanceof org.opengis.feature.Attribute)

return value;
}

I was tempted to modify this hack to get the complex attribute value, but it felt wrong.
Instead, I added a new converter to retrieve the complex attribute value (only if the type has no attributes, ie. Simple content).
I'm not sure if this is a good solution, but I can't think of anything else. Opinions?

Cheers

Rini