She probably did rationalize it a lot like that. But Goodman Grey didn't have any reason to lie about her being a piece of work, even if implying she was in the same general league as his father might have been more to pull Harry back from the edge of doing something frightened or violent just over his parentage than a strictly accurate comparison.
We knew that back in Fool Moon when Harry had his little talk with Chauncy, that they were looking forward to welcoming her, but she changed. Her love for Malcolm apparently redeemed her and made her change, and any Knight of the Cross will tell you redemption is possible for anyone if they want it and work for it. So yeah, she was a piece of work, but equal to Mr Grey's father? That is another question, and an important one is, did she conceive Harry as a starborn as an act of redemption, or for another reason?
Indeed, but they often are not so cliché about it. It unfortunately felt like Harry was pretending to be Marcone, rather than the voice of the real Marcone (in Even Hand). Just broke the immersion for me.
I think that is the problem of style of the author more than anything else. That is the problem I have with the other point of view stories, no matter what the subject is or who is telling it, it still sounds like Harry telling it, or more accurately, Jim. I think it would be better if when he does his short stories from a point of view other than that of Harry, he write them in the third person instead of the first.