Hey Don,
We're sorry to hear you're not a fan of our deck. First, let me know that we have been crafting calendars that are inspired by the Chinese Zodiac for over 15 years now. Until this past year, we have used these calendars as gifts for other creatives, designers, business partners etc. in our local community. After crafting cards for this many years, we realized it might be a fun creative journey to explore other inventive ways to craft a calendar.
After much research, we discovered many parallels that exist between a deck of cards and a calendar. There are 52 cards in a deck and 52 cards in a year. There are 4 suites in a deck and 4 seasons in a year. The cool and warm colors represent day and night.
As you can see, there was quite a bit of thought (and passion) that went into this deck. You're right, it's prone to get weather damaged if left out for long periods of time - as is any product. You're also right that it's not a literal translation of the Chinese Zodiac, but based on a Swedish textile art direction that matches the personality of the ram.
The great thing about creativity is that there's quite a bit of subjectivity to be had.
At any rate, if you're interested in seeing our past calendars - take a look at the video on our kickstarter: http://bit.ly/mmram15
Cheers and thanks for your candid input! 
I do understand what you're getting at. What you might not be aware of is that there's been a series of Asian-themed lunar calendar decks that have been coming out in the past handful of years, most of which are quite attractive. With all the deck designers and companies I've spoken with over the years, you'd be amazed to learn just how much of their business comes from that part of the world - culturally, playing cards are extremely popular throughout most if not all of Asia. If this had been done as a more Asian-themed deck, your profit potential would have been considerably higher.
Most of those designs I mentioned aren't tied down to a specific year, in the sense that the (for example) Year of the Dragon deck isn't tied to one specific Year of the Dragon, but all of them. Calendars are not usually part of the design and at most you might find a list of upcoming years in which the Year of the Dragon will occur. Your deck, on the other hand, practically has an expiration date on it - the last date that appears on your calendar.
Want to take this deck and make something better of it? Consider this: a perpetual calendar. Imagine each card displaying two months each, Jan/Feb, Mar/Apr, etc. to Nov/Dec. There would be 14 variations for Jan/Feb - one for each day of the week, with a version for standard and leap years that have the date February 29. The remaining month pairs only need seven variations. The total number of variations of the six month pairs is 49 - a full deck with three cards extra. You can use two of these plus the jokers to present art pieces for the equinoxes and solstices, leaving one card left - which can be used for a nice, fancy Ace of Spades and the information about the deck's producer.
For the art, you can make many choices - you can use just the calendar images alone, you can superimpose the months over the standard cards (perhaps with your courts), you can even make enough of a border around the months to place the assorted pips there and maybe create courts that are leaning on the months in their cards - there's a lot of leeway for creativity. You can make the months oriented in the same direction or in opposite directions, requiring one to rotate the card for displaying the other month on it and providing a different view.
For the desk display, instead of a simple slot that does nothing to protect the card, create a card protector - two layers of glass or plastic, treated for UV protection so the card doesn't fade if the display is exposed to sunlight or curl in conditions of excess humidity. It keeps the card flat, unfaded and dry the whole time it's on display.
Now, not only does the design NOT have an expiration, it becomes a memento that can be kept (and USED) for years, given as gifts, handed down from senior to junior, etc. The "Ram" idea seems like it's shoehorned on to what is otherwise a presentable deck.
I watched the video and I know it's something your company has been doing year after year with some success and approval from critics. That's a great thing, but I'm showing you just one way to bring it a step further - even from the perspective of someone who doesn't collect playing cards, I would find it unusual to buy a "calendar deck" like this with a display for twenty-eight bucks. I'd be wondering what to do with it when the year was over - do I keep it or throw it out like all my other old calendars? A perpetual calendar, however, wouldn't get thrown out - it's reusable, year after year; a far more green idea than making products with a limited window of use.
Additionally, nothing is stopping you from making new designs each year, variations on the perpetual calendar theme, still giving you an annual product to sell to the world. One could even just buy the new deck and reuse the previous year's display, making it more affordable while also providing them something new to present on their desk, if they chose to do so.
My ideas may or may not be useful to you - I just came up with them off the top of my head. But I hope that it at least gets you thinking in different directions.
BTW: just what does the card back look like? You haven't actually displayed one on the project page, have you? All I see are the two sides of the box.
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