Why does deleting the transform property of a rotated object change the object's location?

Question

Why does the location of an object change when I delete it's transform property?

Steps to reproduce:

1. Create a rectangle and select it.
2. Click again to get to see the rotation handles and rotate it a bit.
3. Use XML editor (Shift-Ctrl-x) to edit the rectangle's properties and delete the 'transform' property.

After step 5 the rectangle changes location, and not to the initial position of the rectangle. I've not seen a pattern to what controls the new location.

The location also changes if I instead of deleting the property change e.g. 'rotate(15)' to 'rotate(0)'.

I wonder what is going on here?

Background: I had read this question Reset rotation point to center of object and was just trying things.

PS. Inkscape 0.92 on Ubuntu.