Expected LOB usage pattern is such that I can perform an insert via prepared statement with a parameter binding for a LOB value without crazy casting to JDBC driver implementation-specific classes...

Part of the trickiness here is the fact that this is largely driver dependent. For example, Oracle (which is notoriously bad with LOB support in their drivers historically) actually does a pretty good job with LOB support as of the 10.2.x versions of their drivers...

public virtual bool SupportsExpectedLobUsagePattern { get; }

Public Overridable ReadOnly Property SupportsExpectedLobUsagePattern As Boolean
	Get

public:
virtual property bool SupportsExpectedLobUsagePattern {
	bool get ();
}