I'm in Ohio. If we had drilled the holes and mounted the front plate, we likely would have not been pulled over. I'm in Cincinnati, and it is very common for even Ohioans to not have a front plate, though required by law. No state bordering Ohio has them, and in my neighborhood this morning in the span of one block I saw around 10 cars without front plates that had non-temporary Ohio rear. But, it is the law (though there is a bill to do away with them as a cost cutting measure.)
Not sure it's worth the 2 hours round trip to go to the court. I've casually asked an attorney and he says it's not worth our aggravation, and that since the front plate wasn't installed, we really don't have a case, and even winning would cost about $65 (fine is $120). We can get the record expunged after a year, but he told us that it really won't matter long term, not wearing your seatbelt in this state is also a minor misdemeanor, though they can't pull someone over just for that.
I really should have thought about the fact that the cops would be out in force this past weekend, as it was a holiday weekend. It seemed they all were in this one county, including the state highway patrol, after we got out of that county we didn't see anyone for a few hundred miles.