jubifahrer, I don't know if it's rare, but you definitely don't see that on every MRE. I *think* that only Sopakco prints their datecodes like that. But the funny thing is, I just looked through a case of 2006 MREs from Sopakco and some of them had that huge datecode printed on them and some didn't - almost as if they came off different production lines.
Oh, I understand what you are asking now. On some menus, they called it "Roast Beef w/ Vegetables" and on other menus they call it "Pot Roast". I think they changed the official name to "Pot Roast" in 2007 because they thought that sounded more appetizing.
This is kind of like how they changed "Pork Chop w/ Noodles" to "Jamaican Pork Chop". Even though the contents are exactly the same, the new name sounds fancier.