As your responses say, you can't have it both ways. If you tell us the material was all well known then it doesn't deserve to be called classified, and it isn't a crime to leak. If the information is classified and contains evidence of ongoing crimes, then it must be leaked if the crimes can't be stopped in another way.
> he didn't tweet out the wikipedia link
Obviously you don't know how classified data works. The Wikipedia pages in question were written based partly on earlier leaks, meaning that they count as classified for this purpose. Had Snowden sent you the WP page on the NSA and said "Read paragraph 3" it would have been an illegal disclosure, but it wouldn't have had any impact.
> The guy revealed government programs that ANYONE who cared to look knew existed
Without proof that knowledge was essentially a conspiracy theory. I knew of ECHELON but there's no way I could prove it to anyone else. Snowden gave us data we could use to prove it.
> Does anyone else think this Snowden as a hero stuff is a bit much?
No, heroism is essentially concern for others / concern for self. He put himself in much risk, for no personal gain, so he's pretty clearly a hero.
