Tigers, your observations are really good. I've only seen the scene once and it was over the summer, but I remember it pretty well. Plus it's on youtube in a lot of vids, so somebody correct me if I miss a little detail.
From a psychology major's standpoint, J/E became even more delectable because they didn't get together. It opened up for so much analysis and I was thinking about their relationship and how sparrabethers weren't 100% wrong.
Okay, I'll start with AWE since DMC has been critiqued to death by now. I wish I had the link to the scene where everyone reunites with Jack. I believe Liz goes up to him and asks him if he remembers her. His eyes widen and he walks off. Right? Okay. That says to me that for the time being, Jack no longer associates Liz with anything romantic or even pleasant. The first memory that probably came to mind was not the fact that they kissed but that she left him to die. So naturally he's bitter and angry at her and that's why he tells everyone that "one of them" actually got away with killing him. So they've gone from potential lovers to something uncertain and awkward. I'm sure Liz was expecting him to be angry with her. Notice how she doesn't push him to forgive her or annoy him. She's letting him have his space, much more so than Will and Barbossa are doing, hoping he'll come around.
I think the next big significant moment between them is at her father's death scene. They wind up next to each other (keep this in mind) and the crew watches the sad scene of Liz going through all the stages of grief in about 4 minutes. Jack watches with a tremendous amount of pity. I think here is when he forgives her but still doesn't know what to do about her. In spite of what she did to him, I think he still loved her but had to rearrange what she was going to mean to him. Does that make sense? He still wants her in his life but not as a girlfriend/lover.
So in sort of a twisted manner, he takes on the Barbossa role of being her mentor. Look at the Shipwreck Cove scene all the way to the Sand Dune scene. All three of them are filmed as equals/peers, and Jack challenged his little protege by naming her King. We've already established he did so because she's the only one with a kickass plan and she's the only one he trusts. Trusts. So this mentor/mentee relationship seems to be working for the time being, and it works all the way up until the end.
Suddenly it becomes the Wizard of Oz and after Liz (Dorothy) doesn't so much as look at all the others, she has her "I'll-Miss-You-the-Most-Scarecrow" moment with Jack. Tigers has great observations here with their little looks. It kind of takes me back to DMC when he explains the compass. I don't think they're trying to give each other signals or anything like that. This is how they are with each other. It's completely unintentional, they just make each other smile. But that look he gives her as he watches her leave...it really suggests something other than what he says. So I think here he's decided he's not all that crazy about the mentor/mentee relationship, but it will have to do until she changes her mind about him. So I think Jack's final take on Liz by the end of AWE is how it was in DMC. Their relationship's mended enough to keep them friends, so why can't it be mended enough to suggest he still loves her? It may not be the canon ending, but the performances