I want to know if there are alternatives to Salesforce’s getValues and getInstance custom settings methods so that I can directly refer custom settings data in Skuid. I know that we can create models based on custom settings but I see below issues with this approach:

1) It is not possible (or is very difficult) to use hierarchy custom setting if we want to leverage all three locations- UserId, profile and Org default.
2) Aren’t we adding extra SOQL query to Skuid page by using model for custom setting? Not sure, if this way, we are taking benefits custom setting offers.

I did brief search on the community but could not find better way to implement custom settings. Please let me know if there is.

Thank you!