Postie uses PHP functions to parse date times. http://postieplugin.com/faq/specifying-post-date/ provides links to all the relevant formats.
You are correct that the “Postie Time Correction” is applied after the date is extracted from the message, which definitely could be a problem.
The fix might be to set “Use Postie Time Correction” to “No” and ensure you have the blog timezone set in Settings: General
I found a solution to the above problem, so I thought I would post it here in case someone else lands on this post looking for the same answer:
I saw this from a replay Wayne Allen made to another poster and tried it. It worked perfectly.
My problem was that I could not get Postie to set a publish date and/or time for some point in the future. I would fill out the “date:” parameter, only to be repeatedly ignored by Postie. Not matter what I entered after date:, the post would publish immediately.
According to Wayne, there needs to be a blank line above the line in which date: is written. It never occurred to me to do that since I had never seen anything mentioning that in the documentation.
Anyway, I tried leaving a blank line above the date: parameter and it worked perfectly.
I still have to do extensive testing to see if Postie will work in the exact way I would like, but being able to post at some point in the future is a big deal for me. Another biggy is to be able to attach images, but I’ve already tested that function and it worked perfectly in my case. From now on, when I run into a glitch in its behavior, the first thing I’ll try is to place a blank line above the offending, non-responsive parameter.