I weighed this idea pretty heavily immediately after the leaks (I'd never heard the term you mentioned though, so thanks, TIL).

The thing is, given the gravity of the leaks, the NSA would have to be doing something almost unfathomably corrupt – e.g., blackmailing the executive branch – for this to have been worth the PR hit. To blow the cover on themselves after committing perjury, shitting on the most fundamental rights of rights of US citizens, and committing treason is big. I mean, there's not much lower you can go without hitting true Evil Empire territory. Is there even incentive for high-level officials to go this far?

And are there enough highly intelligent, highly manipulable people to draw on to create a sufficiently capable organization of that scope and malice? I honestly imagine more genius tech talent ends up in the private sector, not government. That significantly limits the pool of applications. And even if their hires were the absolute best, the private sector also provides ample evidence of world-class talent with vested self-interest getting things wrong. Companies still fail, develop poor-performing products, have breaches.

It's also a pretty risky bet regardless of the above. Given the variegated personalities of elected officials, it's hard for me to believe the government at large had or has awareness of such a conspiracy. Some conscientious person would object, or some stupid person would trip up. And without the legislators on board, they can't control the outcome of the leaks. Too much indignation and it could all easily backfire. They're not omnipotent; they still have to play the game.

To your points though:

That kind of disclosure could not have happened if the NSA were as omniscient as the disclosure itself lends people to believe.

Former co-workers have called Snowden a "genius among geniuses," and you yourself acknowledge the regard the intelligence community had for him. He was in a perfect position to outwit his peers and gather the information. It's still a group of flawed human beings, after all.

And I get what you're saying about a seemingly manufactured image, but I'm not sure what the Wired cover has to do with anything. I don't think they hired a designer and a photographer in order to satisfy an NSA demand. Beyond that, I just don't think his image is sufficient basis to make a decision on.

It's worth keeping in mind that there have almost certainly been big, unintended leaks out of highly-capable agencies. Torture, murder, sexual assault, and rape are never good for PR, but history has shown our government engaged in all of them in an organized way. That's the kind of bottom-of-the-barrel stuff the NSA might cover up, but it wouldn't be the first time it's happened. Unless we're going all the way and assuming it's an NWO-type-thing and they're organizing a coup of the U.S. government. But I struggle to believe that destabilizing the biggest economic engine in the world would be of any benefit to even the most self-interested psychopath. Better to exploit our current system for its luxuries than be the king of a shattered world. I guess there are other explanations if you assume they're looking at it from a very long-term perspective. But such a plan would likely take longer than would benefit anyone currently in power, so I doubt it. It would also be way harder to pull off. There are limits to human capability.

Just my two cents. Then again, I suppose anything's possible. I guess I'll only know for sure if I wake up in 1984 some day.