The big loops seem necessary to me, at least when staring at the 8pt size on my retina screen. It's the same sort of contortions you go through to make a "pixel" font look good at 8x8 or 5x5, or an icon look good at 16x16—abstract overemphasis to survive reduction.

I think, if the font didn't literally have to be continuously zoomed in a lot of places, they would just lose the overemphasis at larger sizes.