Select Count(*) problem

[eluser]Chillahan[/eluser]
The problem in getting count with the main query is there's no way to access the count separately, without peeling off one row of the returned object collection, right? (like if one needs a count for pagination) So I still do a separate count query (although it's just COUNT(id), so it should be quicker than selecting * and actually returning data).

Any thoughts on whether I can improve this?