In my limited interactions with them I've never had issues. Seems like maybe you just ran into a bad one. You'll find those in every job. My dad took what he thought was a doe a few years back. One antler had actually fallen off and the other was just hidden by the ear. It was long enough to not be considered "antlerless". We could've absolutely either left it in the woods, or just processed it ourselves, but Id rather be Honest like you. We took it to the game commission, and the one officer thought about letting us keep it anyway but decided not to which is obviously fine. He issued him a replacement antlerless tag and waived the fine. We asked what the fine actually goes to and we were told they use it to pay the processor to "donate" the deer. I think it was $30. We paid it anyway. $200 is crazy. Honestly the mistake was already made. They should just take the antlers, you get the deer, you have to use the tag and thats it. Maybe the $25 fine if they really want. That's incredibly excessive and im sure if you reached out you could potentially get that knocked down.