Hi Bryan
The extra closing div looks out of place, but it exists for a reason that is not apparent if you insert a one-column Bootstrap grid (your first example), but would be if you inserted, for example, a four-column grid.
First, let's review just the loop section of your first example:
<wpv-loop wrap="1" pad="true">
[wpv-item index=1]
<div class="row ">
<div class="col-sm-12">the content template</div>
</div>
[wpv-item index=other]
<div class="col-sm-12">the content template</div>
[wpv-item index=pad]
<div class="col-sm-12"></div>
[wpv-item index=pad-last]
<div class="col-sm-12"></div>
</div><!-- hanging closing div -->
</wpv-loop>
See that I added an HTML comment to that seemingly errant closing div tag. If you visit a page with this View and inspect the DOM, you won't find that closing div tag, it doesn't get added to the page at all.
Why?
Well, wrap="1" means this is a one-column View, so the indices used by wpv-item will effectively be resetting after every one post.
So the wpv-item index=1 block will get output for every post, the wpv-item index=other, index="pad", and index="pad-last" blocks will never get output, meaning that final closing div tag will never be output. (I assume these alternative blocks are added even though they will never be used in a one-column grid because of the mechanics of how this section is generated.)
Now, let's use an example with a four-column grid.
<wpv-loop wrap="4" pad="true">
[wpv-item index=1]
<div class="row ">
<div class="col-sm-3">[wpv-post-body view_template="loop-item-in-projects-excluding-a-role"]</div>
[wpv-item index=other]
<div class="col-sm-3">[wpv-post-body view_template="loop-item-in-projects-excluding-a-role"]</div>
[wpv-item index=4]
<div class="col-sm-3">[wpv-post-body view_template="loop-item-in-projects-excluding-a-role"]</div>
</div><!-- hanging closing div -->
[wpv-item index=pad]
<div class="col-sm-3"></div>
[wpv-item index=pad-last]
<div class="col-sm-3"></div>
</div><!-- hanging closing div -->
</wpv-loop>
Look closely and you will see that the wpv-item index=1 block opens the .row div, but this time doesn't close it, somewhere else will have to close it.
As this is a four-column grid it will need to be closed after every 4th item, and sure enough the index=4 block contains a hanging closing div tag.
And if the last row doesn't have 4 items, the index=pad-last block will supply the closing div tag.
So, although it looks like there is a hanging closing div tag, it only actually gets added to the markup where it is needed.
