We've found this out at one of my contracts. We've moved off of the typical $watch/$apply model for our directives and replaced it with a simple observable solu

We've found this out at one of my contracts. We've moved off of the typical $watch/$apply model for our directives and replaced it with a simple observable solution like Scheming (https://github.com/autoric/scheming https://github.com/autoric/scheming). Our components are always watching attributes on our Scheming models, which are outside the digest cycle. It speeds things up, and is much nicer to work with IMO.