I think people enjoy Mad Men because it harkens back to a time when people weren’t afraid to be what they were: men, women, drinkers, smokers and whatever else they wanted to be without the Godforsaken hours of self-loathing and introspection.
I think you've touched on the very thing that Foster was alluding to in his rebuttal piece when he says...
It seems to me that the brilliance of Draper, and of Mad Men as a whole, is its ability to make people born in 1974 or 1983 or 1990 nostalgic for a world they never knew, except through a second-hand public school narrative that paints it in the gray flannel and sharkskin tones we've been trained to find so stultifying.
For all of Draper's flaws, there's something genuine and primal in him that appeals to men and disgusts women - and women love the disgust. I think you've touched on the reason - the show reflects our more instinctive nature, and that terrifies some people and liberates others. Don Draper isn't trying to be or please anyone other than Don Draper, and it's refreshing as hell.
Amen. I like Mad Men, it’s just a show set in 1960s Manhatten.