As far as I know the only people who've expressed negative feelings about the new episodes are myself and Olympic Slam, and before OS's posts this week I thought it was just me.
Defenders of the new episodes talk about how "This is the way the show has always been" but I don't believe it. Hell, the gold standard of FG episodes IMO is "Road to Rhode Island" which is reference free and had only one notable cutaway gag (which was then cut away from the episode), relying instead on a very strong storyline. Other favorite old episodes of mine may have had referential gags, but used them to build up the episode rather than just reference for the sake of referencing (e.g. "Let's Go to the Hop." Tony the Tiger doing Judd Nelson from Breakfast Club still gets me). Even my least favorite of the original run, "Mr Saturday Knight" is palatable in comparison with most of these newer episodes.
By contrast, I think I've also been one of the only people singing the praises of American Dad. Originally I didn't like it because I thought it was just a derivative of FG. However, with each succesive downhill episode of FG, AD would climb uphill, differentiating itself from FG with good stories and minimal referential/cutaway humor, which Seth said he was going to avoid with AD. The absence of the show the last couple weeks has disappointed me because I needed it to wash the bad taste out of my mouth from FG.
Why do people not like AD? Fuck if I know, though it'd be ironic if the reason is because it's nothing like FG