There would really be no need for the company to PR that they were conducting a buyback. The buybacks your referring to are the ones that usually occur in the OTC. The reasoning of this buyback would be to essentially make money, bring the momo back, and bring it up to fair market value.
You points are well taken about the roller coaster ride, but that would only occur if they PRd they were buying back before hand once the shareprice got up to a reasonable level, they did not have any PRs to back up the increase.
Im saying back up the increase with some notable PRs, assuming they have some major developments to PR.
In a nutshell the company would buy the stock up quietly, basically 0 PRs, and the stock price would start rising and people would be wondering "why is this going up," sorta thing. Then the momo crowd would jump on. Then the stock price would be back to around 1.40, than the company would issue the major PR's sending this to new highs. By this point in time the 10K would be ready to be filed which, hopefully, would prove the company deserved to be trading at that level.