Being silent about the truth

As you know a number of Deobandis today say that some of the Hadith in Fazaail Amal are fabricated and should not be treated as Ahadith. Whereas other scholars claim that there is nothing wrong in taking such statements as Ahadith. Whose view is the layman advised to go with. Some Deobandis today are actually advising people to avoid Fazaail Amaal based on the fact that their research has not been able to determine any reliable chain for some of the Ahadith. Such claims are made despite the fact that every scholar is limited in how many of the thousands of volumes of Ahadith books he is able scour through in order to determine that the Hadith does not exist.

Whose advice should the layman follow? Is he permitted to quote such statements as Hadith?

One such Hadith quoted by our elders is: "The One Who is Silent About the Truth is a Dumb Shaytaan."

I've seen the Hadith quoted from al-Mu'jam al-Kabeer, and Abu Dawud or Tirmidhi but with no exact references.

Now I understand that al-Mu'jam is over 70 volumes in length. If an Aalim is unable to find the Hadith in al-Mu'jam, or any of the thousands of books of Ahadith, should he:

1) Claim that the statement is not a Hadith?

2) Advise people to adopt caution and not to regard this as a Hadith?

3) Say that there's no problem in quoting it as a Hadith since our elders quote it as such?

When there's a difference amongst the Ulama regarding a statement being a Hadith or not, as maybe the case with the Hadith above or a number of Hadith from Fazaail Amal, which position is the layman obliged to adopt? Does have the option to choose from both?