So one aspect of this I fear to be intended behavior but my second point still perplexes me.

Here is my example to illustrate the issue:

You save a structure of a redstone lamp when it is powered on.

Upon load, the redstone lamp stay lit for a second and then I'm guessing a block update forces it to turn off. (this is what I fear to be intended behavior) It would be ideal if any block state that a structure block saves maintains that state after loading. 

In order to circumvent the block update, you use a repeating command block to /execute if block x y z minecraft:lever[powered=true] with a redstone comparator leading into the structure block to try and keep the structure constantly reloading. This does not keep the lit redstone lamp powered as one would expect and you get the same result as before.