I figured it out.
Maven plugin works fine but the problem was with my spring config:
I had:
<bean id="transactionManager" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.JpaTransactionManager">
<property name="entityManagerFactory" ref="entityManagerFactory"/>
</bean>
<tx:annotation-driven transaction-manager="transactionManager"/>
What I needed was:
<bean id="transactionManager" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.HibernateTransactionManager">
<property name="sessionFactory" ref="sessionFactory"/>
</bean>
<bean class="org.springframework.transaction.aspectj.AnnotationTransactionAspect" factory-method="aspectOf">
<property name="transactionManager" ref="transactionManager"/>
</bean>
Now it works fine. And performace of my @Transactional methods improved and that what I was aming for.
Here is my maven aspectj plugin config:
<plugin>
<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
<artifactId>aspectj-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.3</version>
<configuration>
<aspectLibraries>
<aspectLibrary>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-aspects</artifactId>
</aspectLibrary>
</aspectLibraries>
<source>1.5</source>
<showWeaveInfo>true</showWeaveInfo>
</configuration>
<executions>
<execution>
<goals>
<goal>compile</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
hope this helps someone.