Well, I've found my answer already, either some improvement was made to Pres IDE between versions 4.7.1 and 6.3.0 or Window's default regional settings screws up how DATE are read and logic applied to DATE fields.
Window's default does not include leading zeros. Since the last time I tried logical operators on DATE fields, and now, I've done two things:
Upgraded version of pres.
changed windows regional settings to include leading zeros in date fields.
One or the other, or both, has solved my issue, and I am now able to properly use logical operators on DATE fields and get the results I expect.
Thank you for any time spent on this.