Really helpful comment, thanks. I probably overestimated the importance of a "framework" in the java world, where everything is standardized, and every standard is implemented through standalone libraries (which is probably another reason spring became so famous when i come to think of it, with its original glue-like approach).
I'll start with "raw" java next time i'll want to try playing with rest services.
The only framework which I can recommend, is Dropwizard (http://dropwizard.codahale.com/), which tries not to be a framework, just a glue between some really nice libraries and tools.