Thanks for pointing out the release notes. I can see that in the November release of 1.16.5 it states: "[FIX] Avoid Component preload when Component has been loaded already". I'm testing on the latest 1.16.8 though and still see the requests.
I understand that the component model is marked as experimental; but these have been there since 1.9.2. Actually allot of the "good stuff" in UI5 is marked as "experimental".
;-)