I'm in the same age bracket as you and also grew up with the show. It might have been the intent of Norman Lear to present Meathead as the "reasonable liberal counterpoint" to Archie's bluster but as I grew older, I began identifying with Archie more and more and began viewing Meathead as a lazy bum who had no shame mooching off his wife's parents instead of making an honest living.
Not that Archie was what we would call a conservative today. For one thing, he idolized FDR and was pro-union.
The way I remember it was that Archie did not idolize FDR. The first visit by Maude on All in the Family displayed that! Archie destroyed FDR on that episode. (It was Edith’s, and cousin Maude’s side of the family that though FDR was great. Archie was pro-union as you said though.)