To some extent this is a necessary evil. We can't select articles solely by "date published", as this date isn't available e.g. for rejected submissions. However, if we treat review statistics by "date submitted" and publication statistics by "date published" we're comparing apples to oranges. The only date we can use with any consistency is the submission date.

Hello all,

Then OJS should have a submission period, much like OCS does.
This means the Editor would "open" a window for submissions to a specific issue. Then the dates could be more accurate, as using just the submission date will not allow for quick and precise stats in this case.
Of course, the problem here is that journals are not able, in our experience, to publish in a year what they receive during that year.
The Stats & Reports page only works by year, and it limits the possible ways to analyze the data and generate production reports for the Editorial team.

Rescheduling in light of more recent date published modifications.