[Brian]

Welcome to the forums, Chadman!

The Start date is really the "OmniFocus, don't bother me about this until" date. If something has a start date of tomorrow, OmniFocus assumes that means you can't do anything about it until then and will keep it off your Available/Next Action lists until then.

(Items with start dates in the future can be seen with the "Remaining" filter active, for those times when you do want to see everything you haven't checked off yet.)

A good rule of thumb is to assign as few due dates as you can get by with, but to use start dates more freely to keep things you don't want to be distracted by off of your radar screen. If you need to talk to Bob about something, but he's on vacation until next week, assign a start date and focus on the things you can get done today.

Hope that helps!