As I said in a previous post you can already get the updated version in CVS if you want, as it has other advantages and works with the 2.0.5 kernel.
The ones coming from /templates_c/xxxxxx.html come from the template files, not really smarty. As a general rule, if you want to use a variable in your template but are not sure it will be defined, you should test for its existence like this:
<{if isset($myvar)}><{$myvar}><{/if}>
Skalpa.>