If the worst abuse was lying to Congress, something that happens every day Congress is pretending to do work, then that isn't exactly a bombshell.
If that is all you remember of what was reported, or that is somehow among the 10 worst things, it hardly seems Snowden made a quality sacrifice.
I'll tell you who has a better memory, though: the NSA. I'm sure they've learned real lessons about handling leaks and managing newspaper editors to maintain the fog.
As far as, worrying about "law breaking" by people working is secret, actually, the danger seems much worse than that. It seems actually that the danger is so huge and deep that as long as they're working in secret, they haven't actually "done anything" yet. I hope it stays that way. There will always be bad apples, there will be a few "law breakers" in the national security apparatus, and even the local police, and some of them will do bad things. But that is just regular crime, it is not a special aspect of this situation.
The existence of the leaks brings into question deeper issues than that. Did Snowden leak something real, or was he the NSA plant to throw us off? Are the Constitutional violations just to fake-protect us from imaginary threats, or is there some as-yet-unleaked conspiracy? Why would they break so many laws, on such thin legal justification, just out of a sense of wanting to enforce the law more strictly? Who killed JFK? Are post-JFK Presidents even in charge, or is some shadowy group in charge? The problem with specific conspiracy theories is that you don't know what you don't know. It is not that conspiracies never exist, just that the people promoting them wouldn't know. It is easier to know that you're being lied to than to know what the lie is. Snowden didn't leak anything that uncovers a lie big enough to really explain the claimed programs. There is no way to know anything based on it, and it doesn't even claim to provide any answers about that stuff. From one end of the spectrum being, "Snowden is still working for the NSA and it was all a ruse" to "Alien lizard people are calling the shots," either of these and the whole range between could be true.
We have more information, but all that does here is increase our ignorance by raising more (and deeper) questions that we're answering. And way too small of a percentage of the people who are offended by the programs even care about the truth in order for any positive effects to be apparent. It seems that only those against Snowden will react to him in a unified way, and those who support him will be running in a zillion directions shouting different crazy nonsense. The few people asking rational follow-up questions are ignored.
The whole thing reminds me mostly of Roswell and "weather balloons." It is entirely possible that neither of the two main sides of the narrative are providing useful explanations for whatever the real events were/are.