Mantis,

I live in New York too, and personally, I welcomed the green plastic licenses when they were introduced. I do a lot of different kinds of fishing. Consequently, I need to keep my license in my wallet or else I'll end up forgetting to take it half the time. The old license was a big piece of paper that I needed to fold up many times in order to put it in my wallet. By the end of the season, it would be in pretty bad shape. The new license takes up very little space in my wallet. It works for me.