I agree, it helps to be into the 1960s/mid-century aesthetics for it to really work. I love that, so I would have probably kept watching too. I remember watching all of
Pan Am for that same reason when it aired even though it was not a very good show.
Mad Men is very formal and neat. Everyone is fancy, eloquent and put together on the surface, but then behind the scenes it's obvious not that way. Workplaces were so structured compared to what we have today. There would be no secretaries for the executives in today's offices, there would be no switchboard operators or sandwich cart guys, no drinking or smoking or any of that. It is fascinating seeing how different things were in that time period.