Re: Revisiting Sims 3 and the Unclean upable dish. . .

@Wholesome_Goth  The options.ini file, which holds all in-game settings, gets reset every time a new graphics driver is installed.  So if you installed a new driver, all your in-game options would be reset to default.  Getting around this requires editing the file to reflect your new driver version; let me know if you'd like to know how to do it for future reference.

Another possibility is if you have an app (e.g. GeForce Experience) set to optimize your in-game settings, it could mess with the options file and end up resetting it.

As for plates on public lots, it's possible they became stuck for some reason, but that's not supposed to happen.  At any rate, they should be removable with a mod, or with testingcheatsenabled true > shift-click > Object: Delete.  If you use the cheat, please don't ever try it on a sim though, because it only deletes the body and not the other data.  That's an excellent way to permanently corrupt your game.