The standard usage in the field of crypto is that a phrase like "1024-bit prime" means a number between 2^1023 and 2^1024. For symmetric keys, yes, a "128-bit key" can start with a 0 and can even be all zeros. But for integers with mathematical properties like prime numbers, there's a big difference in the ability to e.g. factor the product of two "1024-bit primes" randomly chosen from [2^1023, 2^1024) and the product of two "1024-bit primes" randomly chosen from [0, 2^1024).
It matches the common-English usage of a phrase like "a six-figure salary." A salary of $020,000 isn't what's meant by the phrase.
You can verify this by, say, running `openssl genrsa 1024 | openssl rsa -noout -text` a few times and looking at the generated prime1 and prime2. They each have the 512th bit set. (They seem to be printed with a leading hex "00:", but there are 512/8 = 64 bytes afterwards, and the first byte always has the high bit set.)
It matches the common-English usage of a phrase like "a six-figure salary." A salary of $020,000 isn't what's meant by the phrase.
You can verify this by, say, running `openssl genrsa 1024 | openssl rsa -noout -text` a few times and looking at the generated prime1 and prime2. They each have the 512th bit set. (They seem to be printed with a leading hex "00:", but there are 512/8 = 64 bytes afterwards, and the first byte always has the high bit set.)