I totally agree. UX should not be based on some engineer's idea of what might be useful but on what might be useful to the actual user. Seeing August 22 doesn't mean much to me because I don't constantly look at my calender, but seeing 1 day ago or "yesterday" lets me know when something happened without me trying to remember what today's date is.
However, that being say, I thing relative dates do have a point of diminishing returns. For me, past a week is when I'd prefer to see actual dates.
I do agree that "over a year ago" is pretty vague at not as useful to the user as "August 2011." The word "about" gets ambiguous when dealing with longer spans of time. Obviously "about" is ambiguous by definition, but the degree of ambiguity increases as one goes further away from the event.
However, that being say, I thing relative dates do have a point of diminishing returns. For me, past a week is when I'd prefer to see actual dates.
I do agree that "over a year ago" is pretty vague at not as useful to the user as "August 2011." The word "about" gets ambiguous when dealing with longer spans of time. Obviously "about" is ambiguous by definition, but the degree of ambiguity increases as one goes further away from the event.