This is my quick take on it, so I may not be right.
I think this comes from the history of older systems like CVS, and it's a decision then-MKS made a long time ago. Have a look at this: Revision numbers.
In the revision number 1.1, you have to think of the second number as the real version number (if you never branch and never change the base number, the first part is always "1." and therefore kind of meaningless).
I know it's arguable, but I make a distinction between version and revision. In other words, the very first instance of the file is version 1, and its first revision (in the literal sense) results in version 2.
Incidentally, I manage a system that was converted from PVCS and I have files like this:
But moving forward, we stick with the default 1.1 as the starting point.
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