Excel 2007 Date formatting - countifs

Odd date formatting issue here. I know I've done similar lookups before, but not in 2007.

Column K is a direct copy of 7 dates from a database I have. Column L contains the same values I *manually* typed in. Both are clear of any formulas and are formatted as "short date".

Using:

COUNTIF(K94:K100,">=1/1/2010") and
COUNTIF(L94:L100,">=1/1/2010")

one column returns the right count....the other does not. I'm completely baffled. if I manually edit each individual cell in column K (ie: f2, enter, f2, enter, f2, enter) the cells reformat themselves and the count is correct.

Thanks in advance for any insight.