Isn't the consensus that this is a thin veneer of "hacker vigilante" that isn't even meant to be convincing?

Most of the discussion seems to follow the track of "this is a state actor burning old TAO information to embarrass and send a message to the US". The ludicrous aspects of it ('Shadow Brokers', fake accent, scam auction) amount to some plausible deniability and not much else. So there might be the pattern you're mentioning, but it hardly applies in this case because this isn't even meant to pass as real vigilantism.

Agreed, if it was too convincing then the message might be lost by the U.S. government.

It's like the kid who trips someone on the playground and goes "it was an accident, I swear!" Making it look like an actual accident defeats the point, you just want enough ambiguity that no one could prove in court (or the principal's office) that you're guilty.

See also the ongoing investigation of the MH17 incident.

I thought there was a story about some Putin e-mails being hacked recently? Maybe I was mistaken, I was sorta on vacation and kind of glossed over it.

You probably mean Putin's advisor e-mails:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/26/kremlin-puppet...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Surkov#Personal_advi...