My issue with the family releasing those photos is that it's going to clutter people's memories with images which are NOT Madeleine, at least not as she looks now. Which, if she has been abducted & they're trying to bring her home safely, makes no sense. While it's not a perfect analogy, think of the human mind/memory as sort of a bulletin board like this. As new threads are added, they bump the first ones down until they're off the page. Releasing photos of other family members is sorting of like adding new threads until the threads with her photos are bumped down/off the first page.
People are going to have things like the McCanns wedding photos & Kate McCann's communion photos in their mind when they should have images of Madeline in their mind. That is, if the abduction theory is true and there's still a possibility of her coming home. To me, that seems to be more about the publicity and manipulating our sympathy. Or it could be an attempt to distract us from their involvement (I'm still not 100% sure that they're involved, just leaning towards it).
Don't get me wrong, I think if they've been falsely accused, they need to defend themselves. I completely agree with and understand hiring a lawyer, I'd do the same in their shoes. I understand the family statements by Aunt Phil, etc. And I understand their making statements to the press initially. But why the continued blitz which is going to take attention away from their daughter? Why the calls to editors & politicians? From the coverage I've read, the calls to politicians & editors haven't been, "let's keep looking for Madeleine" but more along the lines of "we're innocent". Let the lawyers do their jobs and leave it at that. Branson's backing their legal defense, they've got the best lawyers money can buy, let them earn their fees. If my daughter had gone missing, sure I'd be concerned with staying out of prison so I could continue to look for her & be a parent to my remaining children. But I wouldn't really care what the media/public thought of me. That wouldn't be a priority for me. It seems to be pretty high on the priority list for the McCanns. There's always going to be innuendo & gossip in these cases. It's a long battle for the truth to come out. I'd be digging in my heels for the long haul & focusing on finding my kid, not my public rep. But that's just me.
As to the smiles part, I think it may be going a bit off topic of "fencesitters & not guilty", which is the focus of this one so I'll just post a link to another post I've made in another thread if you're interested in reading it:
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1684324&postcount=153
I have no doubt the Rev. believes they are grief stricken. And if the accidental death theory is true, they'd probably feel even more grief than if she'd been abducted. People believed Susan Smith was grief stricken too, and Scott Peterson, and Matthew Solomon & Christine Lane. Yet it turns out all 4 of them were ultimately the ones responsible for the death of their loved ones.
Christine Lane & Matthew Solomon aren't as familiar as the other 2, so here's brief NY Times blurbs about those cases:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEEDF153CF930A15751C0A966958260
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE0DF173EF937A35751C0A96F948260
I lived about an hour & half or so away from where the Lane crime took place at the time. So there was a lot of local media coverage. The mother left one mitten on the ground near their home & mailed the other to herself with a ransom note. Went on tv & cried for her daughter back. There was something off about her eyes, same as Scott Peterson & Susan Smith. Same with Matthew Solomon's pleas for the cameras. Now, I haven't gotten this from every missing person's case. Never could figure out the Ramseys one way or the other. Didn't get it at all from the Van Dams or the Klaas family or the Smarts. Honestly, I tried to avoid detailed coverage of this case at first because I find these cases very upsetting.
But I started following it when the parents were charged. Now granted, I saw it after I knew they were suspects, but something seems off about Gerry McCann's eyes quite a bit & Kate McCann to a lesser extent. I know that's purely subjective & speculation. The main things that are keeping me 100% from being convinced it's them are:
1) they've kept up the story for so long. While Peterson kept up his story, Smith, Lane & Solomon all cracked within a month.
2) the timeframe, if they were involved in her death (and if so, I'm leaning towards an accident from her being left on her own). It would be difficult to move/dispose of a body in that limited time. But maybe that's where the man carrying a child in a blanket comes in. But that also fits in with abduction. Providing it was a reliable account.