Deploy site, issue 2: Register Plus settings

I have 2 servers:
On one, with only private access, I do my development and testing.
The other one is public-facing.

When I have ensured my development site’s new features are working well, I copy all of my files from one webroot to the other, then I do a database export from the staging server, change the site URL in all the .sql files using a search-and-replace method, then import the modified .sql to the production server.

This has caused a number of issues (which I will cover in separate posts).

My second problem;
My Register Plus settings must be MANUALLY re-entered.
I know that my wp_options table DOES contain the old settings from my previous server.

When I look at the Register Plus php code, I see that just about the first meaningful thing to happen is:
$regplus = get_option('register_plus');

If I isolate that command in a separate page of php code (I use the phpExec plugin) – something funny happens when that page is run.

Instead of retrieving the ‘register_plus’ settings, it ignores them, and creates a new row set to the default settings. This is not how I understand get_option() is supposed to work.

big WTF?!

Yeah, so I do this on my database:
SELECT * FROM wp_options WHERE option_name LIKE ‘register_plus’;
And I see about a dozen rows returned. Each represents a different instance where I had to MANUALLY re-enter the commands in the past, because get_option() cant seem to read the existing row.

I know that others have had similar (but not exactly the same) problems with Register Plus.

Any ideas?