Here in Delaware, I hardly ever notice a faded license plate. Our plates (rear only) are flat -- not embossed or debossed. The color scheme is a dark blue background with reflective yellow numbers/letters. The issued plates have numbers only; only specialized or vanity tags have letters. I have amateur radio call sign vanity tags with my call sign "K3LT." You can also get a special, smaller sized black plate with white letters, but only 5 characters are possible due to their size.
We Delawareans can also keep our tag and transfer it to another vehicle, for a fee, of course. This is done quite regularly, particularly among people who have older tags with 5 or less digits. Three and four digit tags are often seen for sale for many thousands of dollars. Any given three-digit tag is potentially worth as much as the car it's attached to. You'd have to sell your house to buy a 2-digit tag, if you could find one for sale.
Anyway, even the standard tags don't seem to fade, and they do seem to have at least one clear coat, so that must explain it.