So when I release 2.02, it will probably turn into 2.2... which might be
confusing if I ever try to release an actual 2.2....
This text implies that you were at least thinking about releasing a version 2.2 and expecting users to think that it was something different from version 2.02. Is that true, or were you maybe just surprised that the leading zero was dropped? If the latter, you're in pretty good company, and the help for version-to-list and version-regexp-alist will be helpful. If the former... please don't do that? :-)
Hope that helps,
~Chad