Proof of concept to allow ui-router resolvers to also apply when controllers are created via ng-controller directive.

controller_decorator.js

angular.module('ui.router').config(['$provide', function($provide) {
    $provide.decorator('$controller', [
      '$delegate', '$state',
      function($delegate, $state) {
        return function(expression, locals) {
          if ($state.$current) {
            locals = _.extend(locals, $state.$current.locals.globals);
          }

          return $delegate(expression, locals);
        }
      }
      ]);
  }]);

Seems to have stopped working with Angular 1.3. I filed an issue about it, for now there is a fix:
https://gist.github.com/gampleman/63bed7b9f089e00a52a2