I hate laugh tracks - but most of the show (as far as I can tell) is in front of a studio audience

It's a live audience and a laugh track.

Yes, The majority of Friends was filmed in front of a live audience, with the exception of a few shots filmed on location here and there. I saw a recent interview with Lisa Kudrow where she talks about being frustrated on stage because of all the pauses for audience laughter, where the actors would have to pause and do some idle animation. That a television show taped before a live audience is expected to be different than a stage play.

I've also seen a "behind the scenes" video, I think as a special feature of the DVD releases, where they would swap out audience reactions. Because, for example, the take where Monica pops out from under the sheets with Chandler, revealing the two were sleeping together, the live audience went nuts for several solid minutes. For the broadcast version, they inserted an uproarious but brief cheer to keep the pacing up.

Compared to MASH or the Flintstones (!!?!), Friends' laugh track is a lot more genuine but it was at least somewhat engineered.

It's still a laugh track. The laughing is captured live, but presumably with a different microphone. They then mix the laugh track with the character's voices to get the levels they want.

That's British TV. They make it work by averaging like 3 hours a year of programming to focus on quality. A single season of an American-style 3-wall sitcom has a longer runtime than most British sitcoms have in their entire run.

I love parks and rec, because every character is interesting. The office has like 3 and a half good characters

I like how Steve Carell plays out Michael, and I enjoy Dwight as well. But the rest really is nothing special. The whole Jim and Pam story arc was more annoying than anything.

It is crazy how good Parcs & Rec is compared to the office.

Humans being stupid?

Yes, that's part of the point, like with Michael Scott being grossly underqualified for his job but landing it by accident and thus doing some unethical shit all the time. That's where this meme comes from.

Just like Seinfeld pivots on narcissistic and selfish people living in a terrible world who don't seem to grow from their experiences.

The cringe is the original point of the show. It's even very toned down in the US version compared to the UK one.

The original The Office is a very niche thing, definitely not for everyone, and i was always a bit surprised that the US remake got the success it got.

If you want to be deeply infuriated you should watch "Extras" which is the show Gervais and Merchant did after the Office. It's like a horror movie that's so terrifying you have to hit pause - except with cringe.

Don't watch Curb Your Enthusiasm. It's purely cringe comedy with very little in the way of other humor. I personally like that style, and even I have to stick to a single episode in a sitting. There's something wrong with Larry David because he's said many episodes were based on things he really did.