With the introduction of Manually scheduled tasks the Baseline fields (as well as Start, Finish, Duration) will accept text entries. The Baseline estimated Finish field only accepts date/time data.

Not a bug - by design.

Thanks for your post. I didn't notice the Baseline estimated dates until you mentioned it. Not a bug, but an interesting design. Looking at the documentation it says that for automatically scheduled tasks, the values in the Baseline Start fields and the Baseline Estimated Start fields are exactly the same; unfortunately they are not as you can still have text in one and not the other.

Oh well, moving on.

If you save a baseline through the usual route, the "usual" Baseline fields will match the Estimated Baseline fields for auto scheduled tasks. You are correct, you can alter the data in the Baselines (including Estimated) as you always have been able to. I believe the baselines can be "locked" against alteration in the Project Server - not just client however.