Ok, I do see this with the plugin you posted, with a clean config. I'll quit SlickEdit, restart, and I don't see the bitmaps in the gutter. Showing the xretrace options shows everything I selected is still selected. Loading the module makes the bitmaps appear for that session, till I quit again. And I get the say() output, so I know the init function is being called.
I'll see if I can trace why this is happening.