>>Not directly applicable to your current implementation but you might look at these:
>>
>>http://christopherthielen.github.io/ui-router-extras/#/sticky
>>
>>https://github.com/rpocklin/ui-router-tabs
>
>Both look very nice form the quick glance. I think the second is similar to our implementation, may be my colleague was looking at that.

You could also look at the implementation of the basic tabset, tab and related directives in ui-bootstrap.js. That uses the 'content' approach I suggested.
I'm not sure your earlier argument re: 'lazy' instantiation stands up - on the flip side you are reloading each view every time it is selected (with the attendant state problems).