But you can't get neither (1) money nor (2) bitcoins from MtGox, so what does it matter what people believe? It's not like they can do much, or that releasing coins for privileged customers would help MtGox...
I don't agree with that. If this person got his coins back, people would have gained a little faith that MtGox might actually get back on its feet. So at least that'd be positive PR for them. The fact that this guy did not get his coins back suggests to me that the situation, whatever it is, must be very serious and lowers my faith that MtGox will recover.
I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying. It would show that they at least 'have funds' to pay out, rather than what looks like them not having anything (or enough) to cover the coins. I just think that the realization that you need to fly to Japan would also cause a lot of negative PR for them.