Fl. DMV won' transfer a clean open title to me.

That's not how it works. FL sends NY a request for a clear title when a someone wants to transfer an out of state title/registration. This request is momentary. If the NY owner subsequently renews the NY registration (a month later) it ginks up the process. We can speculate why it was registered it after it was sold but that won't solve anything. In a perfect world it would've have been removed from NY system but the NY owner presented a valid NY registration renewal and caused the issue. It's got nothing to do with how "swift" the government is in NY.