I think the mistake is assuming that award seats are all "loaded" on a specific date. They may or may not be, depending on the airline.

I'm sure that in at least some cases, yield management algorithms are used to help control award inventory and award seats are released periodically over the course of the year, not all at once. I'm familiar with booking awards on United. In fact, there is a thread on the United forum about Kremmen's experiment with this.

Just as one example of my own experience, last year I was looking for availability of a Business Class Saver award SFO-SYD on United. I started looking online frequently about six or eight weeks in advance of flying, and I noticed that the inventory of award availability on that route often changed wildly each day I went online to check. (I looked at a range of dates for both outbound and return flights, and I looked at other classes besides Biz as well. Also, United's website gives you an idea of HOW MANY award seats are available on each flight in each class, showing a number 0 to 9, where 9 means 9 or more.) I finally snagged the dates I wanted about a month in advance of flying. Obviously, that particular award inventory on those particular dates on those particular flights in that particular class of service had not been "loaded" 330 days in advance, but only a month in advance. @:-)

Also, you would probably get better help on this if you told us what airline(s) you are trying to book on. Since different airlines probably do things differently, and there are people with expertise on all the major airlines on FlyerTalk, you would probably get more specific answers to your questions.