So, unless you're intentionally denoting that your module is 'pre-release', it might be best to start off at 1.0.0.

It's an interesting thought. On one hand, I can see how it might avoid a lot of needless hand wringing. Plenty of effort is spent thinking and talking about when 1.0 is going to be released. I can understand the argument that this should be headed off at the pass by just starting at 1.0 from the beginning. On the other hand, I'm not sure how much value people really put into a simple version number. There are so many different schemes that have such different amounts of value attached to them, I cannot imagine any but the most naive user attributing very much importance to them.

Sure, people talk about it a lot, but do experienced admins or programmers really make decisions about what to used based on a number? I think (hope?) they go more on their peers' opinions, and the gut feeling they get when doing basic research on the project. Granted, examining the version numbers may be a small portion of that research. But I know I certainly spend more time browsing the documentation, looking for functionality, signs of maturity, and basic traces of sanity.