Hmmm... I must say that the idea that too many BF counsellors are women who had no problems, and not enough are women who have had problems BF, is completely at odds with my experience of those I know. In fact I know a lot of women who are very enthusiastic about BF support and far more often than not they're those who've had problems. I'm not a BF counsellor but I am enthusiastic about helping people to get help, sharing proper evidence-based information and support, busting the worst myths and so on, and in my case thatt's precisely because I had bad problems early on - thrush not diagnosed till about 3 months or so - absolute agony - was let down by normal health professionals until I saw a BF counsellor, etc. etc. It's precisely because I'm aware that, of a random 20 women with undiagnosed breast thrush, say, I may have been the one lucky one who eventually read the right web page, worked out what was going on, and found my way to a BF counsellor (i.e. breastfed despite not because of the basic help offered by the NHS), that I'm enthusiastic about helping other people to get the help I wish I'd had. This is true of many, many other women I know.
As for smugness - an awful lot of that is in the eye and ear of the beholder - certainly if I'm honest I know it was in my case when I was still having a bad time and in the immediate months afterwards. I saw smugness just because those people were happy and bfeeding and it was absolute hell for me. I'm sure there's some real smugness amongst women who feel something's gone right for them just as I'm sure the woman at the next changing table to me in her yummy mummy posh clothes with her fashion victim pushchair may have felt smug when my baby pooed all over the mat as I stook there in my crappy coat with my knackered pushchair loaded with carrier bags - so what? But I'm sure it's not the default state for other mums, and making a comment, if someone does, is just rude, it's not something you learn to do if you phone a BF helpline, say!
FWIW, I've never seen any direct evidence myself of a 'BF mafia' or 'BF lobby' - the range of experiences and opinions and knowledge amongst mums is soooo huge and varied that there just is no clear discrete group like that, let alone one that's plotting in the way implied by words like 'mafia' or 'lobby'. On the other hand, I've seen it referred to sooo often - which I see as a problem in itself. How many new mums facing BF problems are all geared up to protect themselves from this 'BF mafia' everyone knows about and people have warned them about, and therefore see it where it isn't really, and maybe treat information from other mums who've BFed as something to treat with suspicion - something possibly dangerously ideologically based, rather than the simple basic practical advice it really is? Bandying around terms like that creates the problem of mums who instinctively don't want to actually take their problem to other mums who've breastfed - you see this on boards in other places - they don't want to ask a board like this for fear of people who'll somehow force them to breastfeed, they want to ask mums who'll give them 'unbiased' advice - 'normal' mums they trust but who half the time, while sincere, just don't have the practical BF knowledge that's needed and which a group of mums who've all done it could have (even if it's just knowing when to suggest contacing a BF counsellor). And that raises another issue of most of us not realising or expecting that to succeed we may need access to a particular kind of expertise we have to hunt for... which is where I do agree that normalising the experience of maybe needing to seek expert help is important. But that's a digression...
It's hugely frustrating - breastfeed past a certain point, and your experience is useless - after all, everyone knows there's this 'BF mafia', and if that's anyone, it's people who seem to know a lot about it - so you've got a catch-22 situation: the very people who may actually have the best practical information become, as a result of gaining that information, people who must be viewed with the most suspicion because they're assumed (whether or not they actually show this) to have some kind of underhand BF agenda and presumably to be insincere and only want to make people breastfeed because that's their ideology (bizarre). So it would be really nice if people who want to refer to a 'BF lobby' could define absolutely clearly who they mean, and what you have to do to qualify for this label. I think that, left undefined, it's more of a problem in itself, rather than any kind of useful term that might actually help to clarify things or help mums to breastfeed.