There's a way to load a game with cheats already enabled - haven't done it in a long time, but I remember you have to edit the cheat file. I think you put a colon in front of the cheat you want always enabled or something like that. Of course, then you can't play the regular way without editing the cheat file again or disabling cheats. You should be able to set up a batch file of some sort through your front end to load the game with or without cheats I would think.
BTW, I think MisfitMame supports speed up Galaga if anyone's interested.