Hi Nicole,
 I have looked at our error log files and cannot see what you have explained - 503s returned as 200s. 
However I have seen 265 errors across nine occasions were 503s responses out of hundreds of thousands of calls in the timeframe indicated. Of which, 4 are POSTs (
http://openapi.etsy.com/v2/listings/[listing_id]/images on 2014-02-25) and the remaining 261 are PUTs (
http://openapi.etsy.com/v2/listings/[listing_id] - dates below).  Interestingly, only one set of responses returned a 
X-Etsy-Request-Uuid (2014-02-08)... 
Here's a summary: 
* 2014-02-26 02:47:06.923 (UTC) x 1 call with 503 response code Server = Varnish
Retry-After = 0
Content-Type = text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length = 422
Accept-Ranges = bytes
Date = Wed, 26 Feb 2014 02:47:04 GMT
Via = 1.1 varnish
Age = 1
Connection = close
X-Served-By = cache-ty68-TYO
X-Cache = MISS
X-Cache-Hits = 0
X-Timer = S1393382823.148182154,VS0,VE1000
* 2014-02-25 16:27:10.330 (UTC) x 1 call with 503 response code Server = Varnish
Retry-After = 0
Content-Type = text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length = 413
Accept-Ranges = bytes
Date = Tue, 25 Feb 2014 16:27:07 GMT
Via = 1.1 varnish
Age = 10
Connection = close
X-Served-By = cache-c31-CHI
X-Cache = MISS
X-Cache-Hits = 0
X-Timer = S1393345616.891581297,VS0,VE10397
* 2014-02-25 08:11:11.003 (UTC) x 1 call with 503 response code Server = Varnish
Retry-After = 0
Content-Type = text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length = 411
Accept-Ranges = bytes
Date = Tue, 25 Feb 2014 08:11:07 GMT
Via = 1.1 varnish
Age = 13
Connection = close
X-Served-By = cache-c101-CHI
X-Cache = MISS
X-Cache-Hits = 0
X-Timer = S1393315854.785613060,VS0,VE12753
* 2014-02-25 07:42:25.173 (UTC) x 1 call with 503 response code Server = Varnish
Retry-After = 0
Content-Type = text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length = 411
Accept-Ranges = bytes
Date = Tue, 25 Feb 2014 07:42:21 GMT
Via = 1.1 varnish
Age = 11
Connection = close
X-Served-By = cache-c101-CHI
X-Cache = MISS
X-Cache-Hits = 0
X-Timer = S1393314130.897892714,VS0,VE10865
* 2014-02-20 15:26:57.870 (UTC) x 78 Calls with 503 response code Server = Varnish
Retry-After = 0
Content-Type = text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length = 422
Accept-Ranges = bytes
Date = Thu, 20 Feb 2014 15:26:57 GMT
Via = 1.1 varnish
Age = 1
Connection = close
X-Served-By = cache-d64-DAL
X-Cache = MISS
X-Cache-Hits = 0
X-Timer = S1392910016.001327276,VS0,VE1001
* 2014-02-20 14:47:31.463 (UTC) x 165 calls with 503 response code Server = Varnish
Retry-After = 0
Content-Type = text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length = 422
Accept-Ranges = bytes
Date = Thu, 20 Feb 2014 14:47:30 GMT
Via = 1.1 varnish
Age = 1
Connection = close
X-Served-By = cache-d64-DAL
X-Cache = MISS
X-Cache-Hits = 0
X-Timer = S1392907649.547153473,VS0,VE1001
* 2014-02-08 22:24:51.333 (UTC) x 1 call with 503 response code Server = Varnish
Retry-After = 0
Content-Type = text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length = 416
Accept-Ranges = bytes
Date = Sat, 08 Feb 2014 22:24:52 GMT
Via = 1.1 varnish
Age = 0
Connection = close
X-Served-By = cache-sv60-SJC3
X-Cache = MISS
X-Cache-Hits = 0
X-Timer = S1391898292.334352732,VS0,VE143
* 2014-02-08 21:21:06.393 (UTC) x 11 calls with 503 response code Server = Varnish
Retry-After = 0
Content-Type = text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length = 416
Accept-Ranges = bytes
Date = Sat, 08 Feb 2014 21:21:07 GMT
Via = 1.1 varnish
Age = 0
Connection = close
X-Served-By = cache-sv62-SJC3
X-Cache = MISS
X-Cache-Hits = 0
X-Timer = S1391894467.333223820,VS0,VE142
* 2014-02-08 12:59:46.707 (UTC) x 6 calls with 503 response code Server = Apache
X-Etsy-Request-Uuid = RhHKWz0Quw6Ny0NxWuAuviGpOniQ
X-Cnection = close
Content-Type = text/html; charset=UTF-8
Content-Length = 0
Accept-Ranges = bytes
Date = Sat, 08 Feb 2014 12:59:47 GMT
Via = 1.1 varnish
Connection = keep-alive
X-Served-By = cache-am69-AMS
X-Cache = MISS
X-Cache-Hits = 0
X-Timer = S1391864387.330043077,VS0,VE97
Vary = Accept-Encoding
 So there is a small problem for Etsy. I too would like to see 100% of calls returned however only a minute percentage of calls are doing this. We have factored into our code a retry mechanism to cover these occasions. 
G.