Okay so to answer your questions.
Yes it did happen with both BADoBEST and BADoBEST+.
The problem even occured on a clean install of the game, a fresh preferences.xml file and no other mods installed.
That being said I found a fix / workaround.
I had to first install an older version of the BADoBEST player panels in which there was only a single checkbox for all equipment and activate that.
After that I could install the new versions (both regular and +) with individual ship equipment and it works.
After this workaround my preferences.xml file now contains that " <showParams> true </showParams> " line which probably was the issue as I suspected myself earlier.
Now for the Autospy minimap mod thing.
So I did get the circles for submarine surveillance and hydrophone somewhat working too.
But here's the catch.
They ONLY work for allied submarines and hostile submarines and NOT for yourself if you play a submarine.
Maybe this is intentional ?