Ignoring the current awesome legal screwup that's bound to be fixed:
I've run with no front plate on this car and my last all over texas for a combined total of about 13 years now. So far I've been warned about it once when pulled over (but not ticketed, the cop said something to the effect of "You should put that plate on, I won't ticket you for it, but someone else might"), and one other time I was actually ticketed for it, so I just paid the fine.
The fine isn't huge, and overall the odds seem to be that getting the ticket is rare, at least for me. If you scan traffic, you'll notice missing front plates are a lot more common than you'd expect if enforcement was strict, and it's especially sportscars that tend to be missing them.
The only reason I would run a front plate was if you had other, more important reasons to try to never get pulled over in the first place (e.g. you're driving around with an expired license, or you've got contraband in the car, etc...).
Otherwise, why clutter up the look of the front, screw up the car's aerodynamics, block access to cooling/intake air, etc? Just not worth it :P
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