I believe the intent of the loop instal was to allow for soil and conductor movement.
What happens sometimes is the ground settels or frost movement. The conductors get pulled to tight. The meter gets pulled from the wall. Meter guts crack and come close to shorting out.
Anyways around here for resi any work and the utility wants you to change from a pipe and meter to an underground meter set up (they call em wire ways). The point of the underground meter besides being an easy install is it allows room for the conductor to zig zag a few times before landing. No extra conductor zig zag then you can have the same problem of the conductors pulling things apart.
