User::loadFromId() contains the following check:
if ( $latest || !$this->loadFromCache() ) { /* load from db */ }
If $latest is true, everything is as it should be. If it isn't, then the call to $this->loadFromCache() triggers a memcached lookup, even when user data has already been retrieved from the cache. I have seen over a dozen GETs for the same memcached key in a single request.