We are facing the same problem at GSI.

I opened a problem with IBM and got the response that
there is no way to change the default 12/31/99 in the
archive retrieve scope window.

( By the way at least with the beginning of the year 2000
  everybody will have a problem with this)

With the same subject we opened an SHARE requirement this spring.
Let us see what happens first :

Possibility to change the default
Beginning of year 2000.

In the meantime

Matthias Feyerabend