Virtually all above make good points but suggest we're missing a clear, commonplace, common-sense phrase for distinguishing (as per gaal, happy, mutant, AM) between the last "calendar year" -- 2004 -- and "the last 365 days (as of this writing)" (bear, inter alia, and noting -- with agreement -- grinder's critique of the phrase) -- mid-Jan 2004 thru mid-Jan-2005.

Can we agree that "the (last | past) 12 months" unambiguously refers to the "last 365 days" without the defects/issues mentioned by grinder and tye?

Lapsing into opinion: grinder's last graf in this seems a decisive argument against Arunbear's option 2; choice between doing option 1 and doing nothing is harder ... and maybe so hard/divisive as to be better dropped?