I got some cuttings from my inlaws heirloom fig in October.  Since them I have put them in a bucket and left them in water, every 3-7 days I dump the water and let the fig cuttings rest for 24 hours out of water.  This was just an experiment, I figured I could neglect these cuttings a little since I have a few planted in ground and I can get cuttings easily.  Now I would NEVER recommend this for storage, I recommend wrapping them but allowing them to breathe slightly and storing them in the crisper of a fridge.  However last winter I kept a few cuttings alive by submerging in water for days and moving them to the coco choir shoebox setup.  Those cuttings that I stored in water seemed to get a nice head start in the spring when I finally planted them in pots.  Funny thing is those cuttings didn't grow roots until planted.  This is really just an informative post that you can use for your own purposes, this would only work on hardwood I assume.  The cuttings that I have in water now have been that way for 2 months now and are still very much alive and healthy.  I'm going to stick those in the ground soon just to see if they come up in the spring.

Hey if it works use it. I'd think they'd do better stored in damp sand or even soil.

They would absolutely do better in sand or any other medium, you are right.  I only soak the cuttings to get the little bumps to form.  The point of the post was to show how resilient the cuttings were :)  Thanks for your comment.