Now, I know that all database queries are meant to reside within models, and not controllers. So that leads my curiosity to the following:
What about when utilizing ORM? Is it considered correctly to use things like
$result = DB::select('id','name')->from('users')->execute();
or
$result = Model_users::find('all');
At the top of your controller when displaying a users page? Or what is the correct way of using this within a model?
You're not writing a query, but utilizing an object that can already be considered a model, such as the ORM method. So should I be declaring a method to select all of the user accounts, or is utilizing the ORMs functionality from the controller okay to do?
I use Viewmodels for "list" type screens. My controller takes care of the specifics (like which page, which columns, how many rows, etc), the Viewmodel does the rest.
See http://fuelphp.com/docs/general/viewmodels.html.