KVOController 1.0.0 supports observing arrays and other ordered relationships, just not values within. I filed https://github.com/facebook/KVOController/issues/5 to track. Features requests are welcome.
Performing the initial callback manually, avoiding the KVO initiated one, was shown to be a performance improvement under certain KVO configurations.
We've updated the readme to include an example tracking the controller object. An instance variable should all that is necessary: https://github.com/facebook/KVOController.