Yes David, there are no absolutes.
I posted my pics of grip positions only to show that the possibilities are there. In real life situations many things can and do happen that fall outside the parameters of prescribed usage or behaviour, and this ,I am sure, is true of keris usage, as it is of many other things.
We can talk about kraton standards, and silat practices, and so on, and so on, but in days past, and faced with the many possibilities that could arise, I have no doubt at all that the men who used the keris as a weapon developed their own methodologies.
There are many other possibilities of grip that I did not show, but which can be perfect for specific situations.
David, you're perfectly correct in that an ice pick grip does reduce reach, however, to the extent that it reduces reach, it increases power. In a melee situation, as in a press of bodies in combat, the ice pick grip is the preferred grip, however, in a one on one situation, especially where combatants might not be of equal physical stature or prowess, the rapier grip can compensate for those physical shortcomings.
These days I think that perhaps we may tend to see the keris as a rather refined implement:- the "prayer in steel", and so forth, however, if we read our history, it does not take very long to realise that in the distant past it had an entirely different character, and this character was not quite so sanitised as it today.
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