I'm a .NET programming who is soon moving to the Java EE world. I have plenty of experience with .NET web technologies, web services, WebForms and MVC. I am also very familiar with the Java language, and have written a few servlets and modified a couple of JSP pages, but I haven't touched EE yet.

I'd like to set up a public website using Java EE so I can familiarize myself with whats current. I'm thinking just a technology playground at this point with no particular purpose in mind. What Java technologies are the current hotness for this sort of thing? (For example, if someone asked me what I'd recommend learning to set up a new .NET site, I'd say use ASP MVC instead of WebForms and recommend LINQ-to-SQL as a quick, simple and widely used ORM.)

So, what I'd like to know is:

• Is there a recommended technology for the presentation layer? Is JSP considered a good approach, or is there anything cleaner/newer/more widespread?
• Is Hibernate still widely used for persistence? Is it obsolete? Is there anything better out there? (I've worked with NHibernate some, so I wouldn't be starting from scratch.)
• Is cheap Java EE web hosting available?
• What should I know being a .NET web developer moving to the Java world?