center the switches, and the plane should fly responsively.
With the right hand switch down, the stick will feel sluggish, as you have effectively halved your input magnitude. You can override this with the paddle switch.
You can move the pitch switch up and down freely, but under slow speed conditions, the AP will disengage automatically. In the real jet, the switch is magnetically held, and with the AP disengaging, the switches will not stay out of the center position unless held there. In BMS, this is just seen as the switches not being movable - which they are, but they are just immediately moving back to center. Point being, if the AP would try to disengage itself automatically, then you wont be able to move the switch, is what it will look like.
Should have no effect on padlock. Should not be affected by padlock. FWIW, Id recommend leaving padlock off entirely, but thats a whole 'nother story.