Did you used "Easy Setup" feature? As far as I know, it's taking responsibility of configuring Windows during installation with paramerets that you're setting. The issue could happen during this automatic configuration. From the other side: issue is not in Windows setup or OS config, it's in VM config, so maybe Easy Setup is not is not affecting VM's config file in a way of adding above mentioned line.

Also could be helpful: do you have this line in *.vmx config file? Maybe the value has been set to "TRUE" on your side.

Anyways, it's an undocumented configuration parameter that couldn't be changed in GUI. Googling this parameter gave me nothing. It is not mentioned in VMWare Docs. There is no way of knowing what is blocking USB redirection in case you don't have other fully functioning VM. So, is there a way to report issue to knowledge base or something similar?