The "?api-version" approach in the doc is there for exactly the reason you call out. Azure uses this approach.
By omitting "/v1.0" from the path it makes the actual URL's far more durable, as they're not version dependent. There are pros and cons to this, as there is with everything. In Azure's case it's great, as you can then use URLs as resource identifiers and put ACL's on them. If they were versioned via the path, this wouldn't work.
Other services, such as XBox, and (very old) Azure, put the API version in a custom header (x-ms-version, for example). This proved to be extremely problematic, and every team that does this had stories of all the problems it caused and then spends time removing it.
I've never seen a detailed proposal for putting API version in the Content-Type header, and will go look.
The content-type header does seem to have many of the same drawbacks as putting the version in a header (any header). For example, people could not make queries from a browser just by entering a URL as there is no way to specify a header. Nor could someone bookmark an API GET request, which is also quite handy.
Ease of use is huge, and I am in the camp that a version in the URL (path or parameter) is much easier in every way than a header. Every with curl, it's easier (I can never remember how to specify headers w/o the man page).
One slight downside of a custom header to specify a version is that OPTIONS calls don't include the value of the custom header, so your pre-flight gets to say yes or no without knowing what version is being called. Putting API version in the URL or query string fixes this.
As for bookmarking a GET request, this is /almost/ doable even following the MSFT guidelines since it says that service implementors MUST also provide a query-string alternative to required custom headers (section 7.8), and that service implementors MUST support explicit versioning. The only fly in this ointment is that the versioning part of the spec only offers two places of specifying the version - URL and query string, and seems to leaves no room for other options.
Personally, I think the Accept header flavor with custom MIME types is the most flexible for minor (backwards compatible) version - see GitHub's API for an example - but it certainly isn't the most simple to work with, neither in client libraries, Curl/WGet command-line use or API consumer tools (almost none let you fiddle with Accept headers). Since API ease of use is such a big factor for adoption, passing versions in the URL or the query string is most likely an OK lowest common denominator for APIs that seek the widest possible reach.
By omitting "/v1.0" from the path it makes the actual URL's far more durable, as they're not version dependent. There are pros and cons to this, as there is with everything. In Azure's case it's great, as you can then use URLs as resource identifiers and put ACL's on them. If they were versioned via the path, this wouldn't work.
Other services, such as XBox, and (very old) Azure, put the API version in a custom header (x-ms-version, for example). This proved to be extremely problematic, and every team that does this had stories of all the problems it caused and then spends time removing it.
I've never seen a detailed proposal for putting API version in the Content-Type header, and will go look.
The content-type header does seem to have many of the same drawbacks as putting the version in a header (any header). For example, people could not make queries from a browser just by entering a URL as there is no way to specify a header. Nor could someone bookmark an API GET request, which is also quite handy.
Ease of use is huge, and I am in the camp that a version in the URL (path or parameter) is much easier in every way than a header. Every with curl, it's easier (I can never remember how to specify headers w/o the man page).