i haven't figured this out either yet.
why do you have to register a bull to sell it unless the buyer wants to register cattle out of him. if you sell to a commercial guy or cut the steers, you are still selling them but not registering, but capturing performance data i guess.
i agree catch 22's are annoying. i'm trying to transfer from working for the man to being the man. i'm not as brave as most on here, hence little reward. until numbers are up and the product seems more of a viable commercial alternative, it will probably be sticky.
registering seems to be a floor of record keeping to help develop a particluar set of families of genetics. i guess it's ok. it sure helps genetic defect searches, unless of course records are wrong, but thankfully, enough were correct with maine's to figure it out.