It's really difficult to rate this show as a whole because the quality changed drastically from season to season and episode to episode. There were many episodes I'd give 10/10 as well as many episodes I'd give 2/10. If the show ended at the 3rd or 4th season, it would get a solid 9 but the last 2 seasons were a drag and brought the score down significantly.

Also the fact that show lost a lot of major characters like Troy, Shirley and Pierce didn't help the situation either. While the new characters were also interesting, they couldn't even come close to filling the gap.

As for meta part of the show, I don't mind meta jokes and references here and there as long as they are subtle and smartly done which the show has done greatly in the first 3-4 seasons but not in the last season. In the last season, meta jokes stopped being subtle and the entire episodes were made around them which made them super redundant.