I have not seen this in the article, which is mostly focused on strawmanning the Real ID but even it was there, it's just an opinion. The law does not make any exceptions for having a valid ID as far as I know.
Yes, I'm doing the strange thing of talking about what a just, moral society should do rather than interpreting and analyzing the limits of current law.
A just, moral society, would not let people off with violating its laws for decades so it would not need to hunt them down when its citizens got finally fed up.
I guess I believe that we should remove the discretion that you believe the officers have...