100x the shares at 5x to10x the price? That's way more expensive than what they are getting for their money doing what they are doing right now.
What does it cost to pay a few message board bashers and the odd seeking alpha author to sow fud, per year? $100k? $300k? $500k
How many shares can the experience t to shake loose from retail through those efforts over the course of a year? 1MM shares? 3MM shares? 5MM shares? More?
For argument's sake let's go with 3 million shares, and let's assume that they could also shake loose those 3 million shares by raising the price to your lower number of $5. Let's also assume that it costs $500k to conduct an orchestrated effort of FUD.
3MM shares x $5 = $15,000,000 vs. (3MM shares x 1.20) + $500,000 = $4,100,000
That's a savings of $10,900,000