Yes. During edit time, as I add and remove controls, I am keeping track of all the controls as XML. This XML is being exchanged with external code (written in C) to make things happen in software outside of LabVIEW. Because I am keeping a persistent link between LabVIEW (in either edit or run time) and the outside software, and they both make use of common data related to the XControls, I have to keep it alive somehow. Since that common data is in XML, I could also just keep writing to/reading from a common file, but would rather just keep it alive in memory the entire time. Running a background daemon in LabVIEW that keeps that functional global active does the trick.
Eventually, I'd like to migrate many of these functions to external software running as a service, so that the XControls just make the appropriate function calls and LabVIEW handles very little of the functionality/data persistence itself. Even in this case, though, I might still have to keep a reference alive! I don't know how LabVIEW interacts with services.