I don't know why they didn't do this to begin with. They have "Advanced Armors" perk on the left side of the tree for steel plate and scale. Would make sense if the first perk in the tree was "Basic Armors" where you can make Steel as well as improve all the low armors "twice as much".
I will have to get a mod for this.
I will have to get a mod for this.
Well I obviously agree.

I ended up putting my small mod on the Nexus if you want to try it out. Good for people who just want this small and seemingly obvious change to the early smithing perk instead of one of the larger Smithing overhaul type mods. Here's the link:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=13839
