I read somewhere that the 1/4" seam allowance was set as a standard by hand quilters because it was too hard to hand quilt through larger seam allowances. When machine piecing and quilting started a few folks tried to get larger seams but no dice. I have several older quilting books that I read cover to cover when I started to quilt again in 2000 and the author of one was quite upset because she felt the larger seam allowance was more stable.
In the early 2000, there was a great deal written (I even saw several folks on tv talking about this) about your personal measurement -- meaning as long as you were consistent in your measurement and you did not stress if all your blocks were a different size than the patter then all was well.