I think that this is a completely different "feature".
The "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" error has been reported on several occasions and for several cmdlets. Just do a search in this community.
It looks as if that error is a kind of catch-all (and a terminating exception) for several errors that might occur in a PowerShell engine. And not limited to PowerCLI, but also for more general PowerShell errors. There are many mentions of that exact message in the MS PowerShell forums.
Btw, I did notice from the list that you seem to have VIX 1.12 installed.
Is that the version that comes with PowerCLI ? I thought PowerCLI included VIX 1.10.
In the past PowerCLI was rather picky about the VIX version.
Perhaps try (again) uninstalling PowerCLI and VIX, and then reinstall PowerCLI again.
And check which VIX version is installed.