Hmm, that's odd, I've got some looping setups in my test world (to test performance) and not noticed any issue. Perhaps the next update might fix those issues?Not sure how i feel about the inserters.
Tried to make a coal coke factory using them but they consistently failed to work when i loaded the world so I ended up úsing the dropping conveyors instead. While they cannot be covered, they fit nicely on top of the ovens and blast furnace.
Just a random thought, perhaps the inserters are not seeing the multiblock structures on game load, so doesn't register a valid inventory? I'll do some testing.