Heh, I knew you'd like that, Anchorhead.
Another thing that bugged me that I haven't heard anybody bitch about is the "Stardates." And I use that in quotes because they're not stardates in this movie, they're years! Our years! Years with decimals after them! And I could almost force myself to accept that the alternate timeline altered how people count stardates, except that the only two prominent "Stardate" periods we're given is from Nero/Spock's time and from the Kelvin's time, both of which exist outside of the branched timeline and should therefore conform to existing Trek canon!
Did they think people wouldn't understand the dates unless they were made to reflect our own? I don't know. It seems pretty clear to me that bigger number=later date than lower number, so I don't get why they changed this at all.