You are giving up a bit of entropy, yeah, but you still have 1022, it's probably safer than wondering if a 1020 bit prime is fine even if they asked for a 1024

You are giving up a bit of entropy, yeah, but you still have 1022, it's probably safer than wondering if a 1020 bit prime is fine even if they asked for a 1024 bit one. Eg we usually don't consider 00042 a 5-digit number. Technically probably depends on exactly what you're using it for which choice is optimal, but I'd think the one in the article is the safer default.