Currently, typing "tea time" into date control, then choosing a real date from datepicker sets month and year to "NaN".

Most of this is done. There are some possibly undocumented css areas that could be improved upon (see @chad for better answer). Closing this task to keep things clean, and we possibly need to create a new task in the future with more targeted and organized css feedback, if it hasn't been addressed already.

I think we should wait until we implement T8060. There will, undoubtedly be some javascript unpleasanstries that will influence the level of customization allowed for this. If we push the user preference patch now, the most inconvenient outcome is that there might be a need to split out format customizations into date selection control format and timestamp format, which is too much preference noise, if we can avoid it. The best outcome, as far as date selection controls go, would be if we can improve and simplify the date selection control, then find a way for the user preference to be the master of both controls and timestamps.

Possible way forward is reducing the number of controls in the date selector to three.

I would probably punt on this until we pursue true internationalization.

My primary concern here is that I strongly dislike adding options to the product (see T8227 for discussion). In most cases, I personally bear the brunt of the long-term cost of adding options.

Haha. Okay. I think it might be cool. T8267

Because these are super awesome.

Are there plans to auto-magically assign icons? Seems like something we'd do.

I love them so much

This is mostly done, pending a design walkthrough at a later time, which will likely change/overrule some of the points in this task.

The dot needs to be an icon, but that's in T7936

Going to break out making the row clickable to another optional task. One that is not particularly tied to the month view. Re: T8248

This is done, until a redesign warrants a separate list of changes.

I think this is something we'll probably revisit in the long run but it's probably a v2+ type of thing and I'd expect it to be informed by other product decisions between now and then (and possibly by application changes like having meaningful automatic escalation).

per discussion in D12886

Just tossing out some other options that might make this easier.