My own academic papers have a decent number of self references, too. But there is an enormous difference between referencing your own work, and telling the reader that the author is brilliant and those other people over there are stupid.

Ok, so what your call be about Benoit pointing out how smart he is making me feel non-brilliant?

I am honestly not sure what you are saying. I never brought up Mandelbrot, only Taleb. (Although this is a curious example, since Taleb brings up Mandelbrot a lot.)

My clumsy attempt was to draw a parallel between to authors who do a comparable amount of self congratulation.