> As if nothing good or the best in its breed ever came out from $PREVIOUS_YEAR or any previous years before that!

I know most of these are blogspam sites and I hate them too, but the way I understand the rationale behind the year, and the way I would do it too is this:

Best $PRODUCT $CURRENT_YEAR can include products that were manufactured in $PREVIOUS_YEAR or $LONG_TIME_AGO. The $CURRENT_YEAR is saying that the list is up to date, not that all the items in the list were made in $CURRENT_YEAR.