Marc:
If your field has a display picture clause, then you can detect if it formatted correctly by looking at field.formattedValue
Specifically, if the value cannot be formatted, the formattedValue will be the same as the rawValue (unformatted).
So a validation script that specifies:
this.formattedValue !== this.rawValue;
should detect invalid dates.
See: http://blogs.adobe.com/formfeed/2011/06/understanding-field-values.html
good luck
John