Lyn2012, it is rather sad that you want to abandon a perfectly fine ereader. Even without the added benefit of Amazon's excellent eco-system and customer support, the Kindles itself lack very little, feature wise and stability wise.
Yes, we suggested syncing as the method of choice, because it is hands down the fastest and easiest way to do that. There is however a way to set time and date, and that only needs to be done once after each restart. See
wiki: Search Bar Shortcuts on how to use
;setTime or short
;st to set time AND date all at once.
There is a simple reason for Amazon not offering a menu option for setting the date: it prevents angry calls to CS, because recent sorting is messed up. By automating that during syncs it becomes peace of mind for both Amazon and the customer.