So we are merely determining what time period FFVIII's planet is, well, I fail to see the revelance, being it's a video game and the technology is 20th century to distant future, and that's matters more than the exact year. I'll give an example, I've always had the theory of the planet Gaia being the setting for multiple FFs, it has four ages, Chaotic Age(where you fight Chaos in FFI), Ancient Age(FFI), Dark Age(FFIII), and Modern Age(FFIX), the landscaping and established civilizations changing over time between the ages; however, putting an exact year on the times of the the three FFs in my theory is completely irrelevant imo, so long as you get the gist of what happened and what's happening, and what hasn't happened yet.