Seat maps are not confidential and are freely accessible for US carriers at a very early stage in the booking process. The CAA provisional stats available each month where only one carrier is flying a route will certainly give more specific and accurate information. If seat maps are totally unreliable, then I hold my hands up. But are you saying they don't give any sort of indication of loads? (I'm not talking weeks or even days in advance).
As to bad publicity I'm not sure I see the problem. Is it any worse than folk complaining about cancellations, the unreliability of a service and state of the aircraft being used, or a report on a specific flight with adverse comments.