Why 1000 km radius? I know that 1000k diameter might be important for cold bodies to keep their equilibrium, but what does 1000km radius give?
Because honestly anybody who played stuff like KSP RSS or any space game taking place in our solar system represented at scale with adequat orbit weirdness probably told themselves "that's Pluto? Ok i get it, not a planet".
It's just a nice round number to use as a clear boundary.