Neither are bugs.
1) Your ships will only get the bonus if they have at least one point of defense in their base stats. If you build ships with all weapons/engines, they don't get the boost.
2) You need to be sure technology victory is enabled when you start the game. For some scenarios, some kinds of victory are automatically disabled. If you want a technology victory, be sure the box for it is checked when you start your next game.
Hastur - also not a bug. On the first screen, the government listed is the one used by that race in the last game. You should ignore political party on this screen, you get to choose your own anyway. It is useful to kind of let you know what the AI will be focusing on if anything.
When you get to the next screen, when you can actually change your political party, it will default to federalist, or the government you last used with this race. When you choose a race, your settings are saved. If you want the government to always default to federalist without choosing on your own, go to the bottom of the screen, load your version of the race in question, and choose to "Delete" the file.
Hope that helps.