Setting "CommonText/Loaded" to an empty string in order to 'get rid of' the loaded text message will not work since WebGrid will replace it with default loaded text.

... we did didn’t want a loaded text message in our grid ...

You might want to try to do it via JavaScript by obtaining the status bar right element. Following snippet code shows how access the element and set its innerHTML.

function GetStatusBarRightElement() {
    var grid = ISGetObject("WebGrid1");
    var statusBarRightElement = grid.GetElement(WG40.STATUSBARRIGHT, WG40.HTMLCELL);
    statusBarRightElement.innerHTML = "";

    return true;
}

Hope this helps.