Best way to store custom values in Drupal 7? Is there a good (recommended) way to store custom values in Drupal 7? I've looked into variable_set / variable_get, but then read a comment suggesting NOT to use those for the purpose that I'm needing (unless I completely misunderstood). Here's the comment that I'm referring to:

http://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/includes!bootstrap.inc/function/variable_set/7

"All data created by variable_set() is loaded from the database at bootstrap. Calling variable_get() doesn't perform the database request to get you the data, it simply declares the $conf global and returns the variable you've asked for. Therefore, don't carelessly use variable_set() to store lots of data that you will only use on individual pages or in custom methods. Use your own little table and storage functions for that."

Basically, I'd like a place to store a couple of values, so that I can avoid having to hard code those values within my custom module code. For instance, I'd like to store a current Reporting Year (i.e. 2011), and a current Data Entry Year (i.e. 2012). Is this just something that I'd need to create my own table for?
No, there's no need to create your own table for that. Your use case is a perfect example of what should be stored in the variables table (in my opinion).

Since the data isn't particularly volatile, and you only have a couple of values, I can't see any benefit to adding a custom table for it.

If you start finding yourself storing a lot of data in variables, for example a single different variable for each node of a certain content type, that's when you need to start looking at a custom table.