“Menachem Shmei didn’t “admit” to having these beliefs”
Untrue. He admitted on one of these threads to the belief that Moshiach will be the Rebbe. He [seemingly] defended those who believe the Rebbe is alive at the front of 770 after another poster explicitly defended it.
“I doubt it.”
Why? I didn’t even mean that as an attack, just a practical matter. If Lubavitchers put Rebbe pictures on all house walls, and the house serves as the shul, then there’s going to be one on the eastern wall. I personally don’t care, nor do I see why anyone else does.
“It’s forbidden to daven in front of a picture (or even a mirror)”
That wasn’t Yserbius’ point, clearly. If that were the only problem, it wouldn’t matter if it were a painting of a landscape. In any case, people seem to be meikel when davening in their own homes (i.e. I’ve never seen anyone leave their eastern wall undecorated on purpose), so I wouldn’t call it a “big accusation” to claim that they’re among these meikelim.
“he acknowledged that there may be “crazies” who hold these beliefs.”
The fundamental difference is the following: what bothers him about the “crazies” is that they make Chabad look silly. What bothers the other side is that they actually hold l’halacha that those beliefs are kefira. That’s a huge difference, and we can’t pretend they have common ground built around criticizing the vocal “crazies” in Chabad.