Regarding versioning of multiple releases, look into share/pin/branch/merge functionality [1]. Although SourceSafe's implementation is not the most robust, so you may want to evaluate alternative products if you have to manage many different parallel releases.
Regarding getting by date, VSS only looks at file dates, not projects/folders. You may want to specify a date range [2].
[1]
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en...d_Projects.asp
[2]
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en...ne_SwitchV.asp