I think the "timebomb" thing is a bad idea at all. It should *warn* that at some time in the future it won't be available, it can even have a prediction of when that is, but I don't think it makes any sense for a software to have a different API depending on the Date.

I would suggest, however, to replace the Dates for using version numbers, saying that the method is deprecated since version X, and is expected to be removed by version Y, but no automatic disabling of the method.