Calc does not respect the locale's LC_TIME setting for date formatting in the
edit bar. Dates are always formatted MM/DD/YYYY regardless of locale.

In this example, I use locale "en_DK.utf8" which has the date format YYYY/MM/DD.

$ locale
LANG=en_DK.utf8
LANGUAGE=en_DK.utf8
LC_CTYPE="en_DK.utf8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_DK.utf8"
LC_TIME="en_DK.utf8"
LC_COLLATE="en_DK.utf8"
LC_MONETARY="en_DK.utf8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_DK.utf8"
LC_PAPER="en_DK.utf8"
LC_NAME="en_DK.utf8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_DK.utf8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_DK.utf8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_DK.utf8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_DK.utf8"
LC_ALL=en_DK.utf8
$ openoffice.org2.3 -calc

Now, I select column A -> Format Cells -> Numbers -> Category -> Date -> Format
-> 1999-12-31. I now enter "2008-1-16" into cell A1 and hit enter. The cursor
moves to cell A2 and I see "2008-01-16" in cell A1. So far so good. Now, I click
on cell A1. The cell still says "2008-01-16" however the input line reads
"01/16/2008".

The edit bar should format dates as they are formatted for display in the cell.
Failing that, it should display in the locale's preferred format.

Note: the problem _may_ be that Gnome's date format is not configured properly.
I use KDE on Ubuntu, with Gnome installed as the default desktop. However, due
to a poorly written ATI driver I cannot open Gnome and change the setting.
Googling and locating has not led me to discover which config file I should edit
in VI to change this setting. In any case, Gnome's setting should _not_ be the
deciding factor in which date format to use. Not everyone uses Gnome, and that
is specifically what LC_TIME is for.