The 1940 date could have been a bug and he never corrected it. I remember a few date bugs going around back in the day.
As far as the pre-order stuff, I don't really remember. I know that you can't add something to your collection until the release date has been realized, but as far as going into the collection UI after the release date and then inputting the pre-release date on which you pre-ordered it, I don't remember if you allowed to do that or not.
I found
this and this
older one. Consensus, at the time, seemed to be that you could make a note of when you pre-ordered in the comments area, but had to use the toy's release date as the date of purchase.
MIKE
engledogg