How screwed am I?

Example is that a clerk in NC had me jumping through a bunch of hoops in order to run my 1969 NC license plate on my car. I told her this was a daily driver and would see 5k+ miles a year. She had me doing the things for something that was used in parades and never came with a street title. All that was really required by law, was I registered the vehicle as a normal driver, and as long as the plate was in servicable condition and the same year as manufacture, you just mounted the vintage plate, and stored the standard plate in the vehicle available for inspection by LEO upon request. Days wasted dealing with her, when it took me 10min online reading state PDF's to determine the correct COA.

Good luck!