I attended the memorial a couple of times after I faded - my wife was still attending at that time. It was more to keep the peace and kind of muddy the waters a bit to stop me getting DFd for apostasy. But I stopped thereafter , and haven't been for approx 10 years now. I understand why some ex-JWs attend - family reasons etc - different strokes for different folks.
I'm not sure what signals it sends to congregation members. There always are a few relatives / bible studies / marginal JWs etc who turn up most years - regular JWs know that it is very much a token gesture. Whether it gives them any validation that the person has a residual belief or respect - I'm not sure.
Funnily enough , going to a single meeting and being very much an observer from the outside gave me a new insight - it reinforced the fact that I had made the right decision to leave. I found it really boring & unsatisfying and could easily see the nonsense and contradictions in some of the scriptural discussions - the main theme and admonition seemed to be "DON'T PARTAKE ( which judging by the worldwide increase in "anointed" every year , clearly isn't working") . For the first time I almost laughed out loud at the farce of the passing of the bread & wine which nobody partook - it seemed a rather confusing variant of "pass the parcel".
As far as being "love bombed" is concerned - that didn't work for me. Quite the opposite. I was quite uncomfortable as some people talked to me but others basically shunned me & maybe I was paranoid but I was aware of people muttering to each other and pointing to me ( I'm faded , not DFd / DAd ) One of the more outspoken "sisters" said something to the effect that it was "time to sort my life out" , to which I replied that my life was very much sorted out , thank you. I was very self conscious when the songs were being sung etc.