I think your false distinction of "counting loop" as separate is just that. False.

It's not my false distinction, like I explained. It's a need of myriads of programmers I support here. If it helps, why should I say "you're all wrong!".

And then you'd also have to break out a slice too.

What kind of logic is that? As far as I can tell, that isn't optimised, it holds no special significance to anyone, and there's stylistic advantage for the distinction. There's nothing special about array slices in a loop.