Well, I try to avoid that first example. If the verb indicates speech (said, replied, asked, demanded, etc) then it's a continuation of a sentence and it gets a comma and lower case letter.

"Nice to meet you," he said, smiling.

If it's an action (smiled, laughed, glared, groaned, etc) then it's a new sentence so it gets a period and an uppercase letter.

"Nice to meet you." He smiled.

If I wanted to emphasize the smile, I'd probably just reverse the order:

He smiled. "Nice to meet you."

You can talk while smiling, so I guess it's sort of ambiguous -- but you can't really talk while sighing, groaning, laughing. Or at least, most people don't. So they don't indicate speech, and that's why it's separated from the dialog.

Or so I've been told, by many many beta readers and GE's over the years laugh

Personally, I like using action tags to indicate the speaker. It cuts down on "said" although that's such a common word I don't think most people really notice it, unless it's in every paragraph. It's an economical way to get description in with your dialog. It makes you work a little harder to make your dialog stand on its own -- show agitation, don't just write "agitated."

"I see that," he said, sarcastically.

vs.

"Yeah, right, I can tell." He rolled his eyes.

But variety is the spice of life and you need a mix of speech tags, action tags, and just plain lines of dialog. Any kind of tag gets annoying if it's used exclusively. Give the reader credit for being able to figure things out. smile

Or that's what I can come up with at 8:15am when I'm working on six hours of sleep. dizzy

PJ

"You told me you weren't like other men," she said, shaking her head at him when the storm of laughter had passed.
He grinned at her - a goofy, Clark Kent kind of a grin. "I have a gift for understatement."
"You can say that again," she told him.
"I have a...."
"Oh, shut up."

--Stardust, Caroline K