I just bought a Record# 52 woodworking vise in near mint condition, installed it on the front corner of my workbench, everything went smoothly until I put in the jaw liners and found the jaws don't close parallel! when fully clamped, the jaws touch on the top first and leave a 1/8" gap at the bottom. searched Google for this "toe-in issue", apparently most Record WW vises are designed that way.

I ended up sanding the front jaw liner at that 2° angle to compensate for the gap, now the jaws are parallel when closed tightly, my question is, why are these vises designed this way? what is the advantage of that gap? why not all other woodworking vises followed the same design if it was such a great design ? I spent a good hour of sanding & fitting the front jaw liner to make it tapered and finally got it to close evenly/parallel, is that something all owners of Record vises with this toe-in design have to go through or should I have left it the way it was with the 1/8" gap?
I appreciate your comments .
Here's an image I found from another site: