Originally Posted by
DaveReidUK
More recently, it's been almost compulsory to start series designations for new types with 8 (or 800) and higher
But now you have the problem of running out of "same number of digits" codes. 737MAX-10, 787-10, 350-1000.
Yes, I know, this is a First World problem.
I guess another reason why we now like to start at higher numbers comes from the software field. Seeing a version XX.0 always made people alert that it was more likely to be buggy than a version XX.1 or higher. Of course, I think the amount of initial testing in large transport aircraft exceeds immensely the amount of initial testing in consumer-grade software.