I'm just reading your "taste manifesto".
I'm 100% with you on '80s production, revolting, and a massive hindrance. It's like everyone forgot how to make music sound good for 10-12 years. Even without it though, the '80s are mostly a write-off of a decade - you can listen to albums from 1978 and 1979 and not only were only shite bands appearing, but you can hear the zeitgeist transforming all the good ones from the '70s into shit too. And that situation holds like a spell until about 1989.
BUT with all that said - if there's anything to take away from the decade, it's pop. Coming from someone who is really not fussed on the 80s, or pop very much, the '80s were basically the golden age of pop.