I have never had passport issues and mine seem to get pretty beat up. However I did have a nice immigration agent sneer at my old green card coming back from Germany a few years ago. Told me it was too old and get it renewed. I carefully explained to the nice goverment employee that my green card was the type issued in the mid eighties that do not expire and therefore do not need to be renewed. He would have nothing of it and put nasty entries in my record (he claimed) denying future entry without a new green card!
You would not believe the public servant BS I had to go through to renew a non-renewable green card
