>Can you argue that typing 4 digits is as fast as typing 2 digits? No. Therefore there is a benefit to typing 2 digits. Now, the decision process involves weighing the different benefits/problems. Given just one benefit for 2 digits (speed), one can decide that it is a better choice depending on how he weighs this benefit.

PMFJI, but the cost/benefit would be a wrong date because managemet wants to sacrifice less than 1 second of data entry time per date versus assuring an unabiguous date (assuming you have quite competent/professional heads-down data entry staff). The only way you can be assured the year is correct is if you do not have any dates fall outside of a 100 year window. Can that be guaranteed?
Now on the hopefully helpful side -- you could make an assumption in your class that the century is that of the system date if only 2-digits are entered for the year and maybe combine this with the ROLLOVER feature.

Also, is it a requirement that the year be the FIRST part of the date? If you could at least get agreement to put the year at the end, 99% of your problem is resolved. You could enable the SelectOnEntry then not worry about an entry of 010299 turning into 01029998 or some other such bizarre year.