(BTW, the entry "Numeric precision" has a misleading tooltip "How many digits to write after the decimal dot", whereas the value evidetly means the total number of valid digits.)
Any reason why Inkscape's "precision setting" option limits "significant figures" instead of "decimal places"? Placing a limit on "significant figures" forces arbitrarily higher precision for coordinates near the origin of the drawing. Precision drops logarithmically (in discrete jumps) as the coordinates move away from the origin.
E.g. Consider the following horizontal path created with a numeric precision of "8". d="M 0.17036585,0 243.56794,0 507.68921,0 801.52616,0 1128.1785,0" Note how the first coordinate has eight decimal places while the last coordinate has four decimal places. The extra precision on the lower valued coordinates leads to necessary file bloat. When a drawing has thousands of points this bloat becomes significant.
I would prefer it if inkscape could let me create paths where each coordinate had a set number of decimal places like this: d="M 0.1704,0 243.5679,0 507.6892,0 801.5262,0 1128.1785,0"
-crjw