I'm not sure exactly. But I'm not getting the extra groups being made here. Don't you name your groups? I don't know your experience, but everytime you highlight cps, a group is automatically made when you change the surface properties......the automatic name given is GroupXX.
So, it seems to me you're constantly manually selecting cps and changing the surface properties.
If you name the group and select the group name at a later time, the assigned cps will be highlighted again.
Everytime you click in the model window, the group folder will automatically open. I know it can be a pain if you've alot of groups, but trust me, this system has more pros than cons.