I've done the same thing and observed the same behavior. I believe that this behavior is by design.
Dynamic expansion is promised
The "Create new disk" wizard states, under the "Fixed-size storage" section:
The creation of a fixed-size storage [sic] may take a long time depending on the storage size and the write performance of your harddisk.
One reason for the dynamically expanding partition is that creating, say, a 32 GB file on the host for the virtual machine takes a long time.
Dynamic expansion is useful
Therefore, pretending that the file is actually 32 GB until it actually needs to be that large is useful; you don't want to wait a long time to create a new machine if you're only going to use the first 2 or 3 GB when you install the OS and start it up.
Dynamic expansion does happen
This works as expected, as you and I have observed.
Dynamic shrinking is not promised
Again, the wizard states:
A dynamically expanding storage initially occupies a very small amount of space on your physical hard disk. It will grow dynamically (up to the size specified) as the Guest OS claims disk space.
Nowhere in this paragraph does the software suggest that the disk will ever shrink.
Dynamic shrinking is not useful
Having a dynamically shrinking partition is less useful. It would not result in a significant space or time savings. When you create a dynamic partition, you're making a contract with the guest OS that the hard drive will expand to the stated maximum size if and when it needs it. Dynamically resizing the drive to be smaller and using the space savings would create a conflict later when the guest OS needs to create a large file, perhaps when building a swap space for hibernation.
Dynamic shrinking does not happen
Again, you and I have both observed that this does not occur.
Conclusion
For these reasons, I conclude that you are getting the correct file size, and it's almost certainly correct. You can create 1 GB files as often as you like, but their removal will not decrease the size of the virtual disk.