The genealogical reality is that in some areas and time periods, exact dates of events will never be known. The records were never created or have long since been destroyed. In this situations, there may be other records that suggest an approximate date of death or a “dead by date.” It’s often not the precise date of death that matters but the relationships between individuals that one can establish and the other bits of identifying information about people that can be sifted out of other records.
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My biggest problem with dates is the date the will was written being used as death date. Second would be probate date used as death date. One of my ancestor’s will was not probated until 21 years after his death. Try to track that guy through the trees at ancestry! Too many people are thinking in present time and not in the century that things happened.