Your current method of using ~/.gvfs/ is fine, but you don't need pcmanfm for that – you can use gvfs-mount to connect to the share. Additionally, tools such as gvfs-ls and gvfs-cp will accept your smb:// URI.
$ gvfs-mount smb://HOST/SHARE/
$ gvfs-ls smb://HOST/SHARE/
In recent gvfs versions the location is $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/gvfs/ (aka /run/user/$UID/gvfs/), and the subdirectory names have become more machine-readable:
$ ls /run/user/$UID/gvfs/smb-share:server=HOST,share=SHARE/
In older versions:
$ ls ~/.gvfs/"SHARE on HOST"/
(Remember to quote spaces within path names.)
Specifically for Samba, you can use the smbclient program, or mount the share on the VFS layer by using mount -t cifs. (The latter is, unfortunately, limited to root.)
$ smbclient //host/share
# mount -t cifs //host/share /mnt
(For other kinds of filesystems, such as SFTP and FTP, sshfs and curlftpfs exist respectively.)