ArchiCAD 11 1210 USA the latest:
With a group or hotlinked module that has elements in a hidden layer, a selection with Suspend Groups unchecked will show (in the Info Box, Find and Select palette, Element Information palette) that all the elements in the group/module, in visible and hidden layers, are selected.
Zoom in or out, and the count gets reduced to the elements in the visible layers.
I am not sure which is better, whether to count all or count only visible, but I am pretty sure that doing both is not a good idea.