Sounds like a bug, work in maya long enough and you find them. I found a similar one in maya2008 where when switching between display modes it stopped showing any handles, even when I returned to my original settings. I restarted maya and they came back.
If that doesn’t work it’s might be a problem with your preferences causing it. If you can’t find and fix the setting responsible you can delete (or rename in case you need them again) your maya prefs and start with a clean slate with default prefs. Be warned, that’s a real pain in the ass if you’ve specialized your workspace. If you’re on a PC your prefs are probably in your maya folder or your maya version folder. They’re harder to find on my mac