It seems the rateLimiter could infact solve this problem.
http://knockoutjs.com/documentation/rateLimit-observable.html
"Writes to observables are not delayed; the observable’s value is updated right away. For writable computed observables, this means that the write function is always run right away.
All change notifications are delayed, including when calling valueHasMutated manually. This means you can’t use valueHasMutated to force a rate-limited observable to notify an un-changed value.
The default rate-limit method is different from the throttle algorithm. To match the throttle behavior, use the notifyWhenChangesStop method."
Evaluation of a rate-limited computed observable isn’t rate-limited; it will re-evaluate if you read its value.