How to access uicontrol data easy and fast

Before R2014b version I used to save uicontrols into *.mat file load it and modify my UI objects with get/set. Since R2014b this has changed and I cannot save uicontrols in *.mat files. Thus, at the moment my only workaround on this is using findobj() which can find my "tagged" uicontrols. This approach is quite slow (sometimes) but on the coding view is too verbose (every time I have to findobj() of something). Is there an easy and fast way of accessing uicontrols data without the need of using findobj()? Is there another trick to perform this?

Many thanks!