I use a little shell script saved as an app created with automator for toggling hidden files:

showfiles=`defaults read com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles` if [ "$showfiles" = "TRUE" ]; then defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE else defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE fi

In combination with the spotlight search it's really fast ;)

Edit: Formatting isn't that nice in the comments, here's a little gist which is pretty much the same. https://gist.github.com/rprieto/7349079