I appreciate your criticism, but I don't quite understand it. Did you have a problem with the lack of 80s references? Or just the execution? Or both? Our thesis was "Mad Men happens in the 80s" not "the 80s happen to Mad Men." We relied on real ad campaigns from the era to form the story -- hence, the Wheaties box, Where's the beef?, and New Coke. The joke isn't that New Coke is lame, which is tired. It's that it happens to Don Draper, and after decades in the industry, how does he respond to such a disaster of a product? How does he reconcile his image of the American-ness of Coke with this backwards idea?
As for the acting, they're impersonations and it's a comedy. They're playing heightened versions of the characters. I see nothing wrong with it and I think we'll have to just disagree.
If it sounds like I'm defensive or just sparring, I'm not. I think it's interesting how people approach comedy and genuinely want to understand your perspective.