As found in JBDS-1518 there are a startup bug in SpringIDE/SpringSTS which triggers non-normal pluginloading and can cause problems for plugins depending on the "normal" plugin load sequence.
For now we avoid it by not using latest version of SpringIDE but the version before that.
Snjeza reproduced the problem on plain STS and its reported at https://issuetracker.springsource.com/browse/STS-1554