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I've noticed a thicker smokering on my meatloaves, too. The only explanation that I can come up with is since the ground meat is not as dense as a butt or brisket, more smoke is able to penetrate the ground meat.
Yesterday I smoked a butt, a fatty and my meatloaf. I put the butt and the fatty on real early and kept the temp at 250o................then later put on the loaf. When the butt and the fatty were done, I let the temp go down to 200o and smoked that wonderful meatloaf low and slow baby. It smoked for 8 hrs and I pulled it when the internal temp was 150o.
I used cherry wood. The meat had such a great flavor and it was so juicy.
I'm thinkin Dutch is right on about how dense the meat is.
All I know is me, my family and a few neighbors think we've tasted the best meatloaf on the planet.