Yeah, that is what happens in PCs, to have some storage node for this data. But the board is already produced, just the DDR memory is replaced with no other change in design. That is why I can't check GPIOs or some tiny I2C flash.
So the environment is my best (only) option (if this is possible at all). Otherwise I have to deal with two different hard coded uboots, which is a pain in handling too.
Was really surprised to see that neither devicetree in uboot (which wouldn't help here) nor that one in kernel is really used.