In fact, it's a lot like Cumberbatch's "I am Khan (dun dun!)" moment. In the sole context of this movie you would have no idea why that name is significant, and neither do the other characters. They shouldn't give a fuck if his name is Khan, other than it's a damn peculiar name for such a white dude. Maybe if they had some kind of "holy shit, I learned about this guy in school" moment, but they don't. They save that for old Spock later. Which doesn't add anything to the drama at that point, anyway.
And of course in addition to Nimoy showing up being entirely a "Here's a thing you remember from the old series!" moment, his dialogue is also made up of references to Wrath of Khan. When he said they defeated him "at great cost", I leaned over and whispered to my wife, "He died. He got better."
Despite its efforts to establish itself as something new, this franchise is still relying on things that hold emotional resonance and credibility solely because of how they appeared in the older movies and TV shows. Taken on its own this one is a loud, illogical mess that keeps holding out random crap and shouting "HEY, IT'S A TRIBBLE! YOU LIKE TRIBBLES, RIGHT? SET PHASERS TO STUN! PRIME DIRECTIVE! THE NEEDS OF THE MANY!" But it hasn't, itself, given you any reason to feel anything about any of that.
Yeah. It's a cover tune that shows some technical skill but a lack of understanding of the original.
I absolutely agree with Friday's point that anybody who says this movie is bottom-of-the-barrel is exaggerating or lacking in perspective. It's not the worst summer blockbuster, it's not the worst Trek movie -- it's not even the worst Trek movie where [spoiler]Kirk dies[/spoiler].
But it IS the worst second Trek movie that has Khan and Carol Marcus in it and where [spoiler]halfway through the movie one of the two principals gives up the chair to the other one because he believes he's more qualified to get them through this, and then dies of radiation poisoning while holding his hand up to the glass with the other guy on the other side[/spoiler]. And also somebody shouts "KHAAAAAAAAAN!"
On its own merits, it's not bad. It certainly suffers from the Summer Blockbuster Cliches laundry list you mentioned, but it's pretty and it's shiny and shit blows up and seriously the entire cast is just fucking great.
But if they wanted us to consider the movie on its own merits, maybe the last act could have gone five minutes without going "Hey, Wrath of Khan! Remember that movie? Huh? Huh? Do ya?"
There's a line in the MST3K of Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, where Raul Julia's watching Casablanca and somebody points out you really shouldn't be putting a much better movie in the middle of your movie.
I get why they wanted to riff on Wrath of Khan. It's the best Star Trek movie. I get why they brought Khan back. But copying the major plot beats of the movie note-for-note was too much. Like I said before, I'm pretty sure people who haven't seen Wrath of Khan will enjoy it more than people who have.
And they ARE relying too closely on the audience having an investment in stuff from the old series. I'd say that, ironically, Wrath of Khan did better as a standalone film. You don't have to see Space Seed to get who Khan is; who he is, what he does, and why everyone's afraid of him are all established over the course of the film. And, likewise, you don't really have to know anything about Kirk and Spock other than their basic background for their relationship to work in the context of the film.
The dilemma between exploration and militarization is a damn good one, and fits Star Trek pretty well. The question of a covert military organization engaging in morally-dubious operations, and of top brass seeking to provoke a war based on a completely unrelated terrorist attack, are sadly still pretty relevant metaphors for the world we're living in. But you're right that the military/peaceful exploration ethical dilemma is one more thing these movies haven't really given us grounds to believe and relies on a general familiarity with any of the various TV series to believe Starfleet isn't already militarized as fuck.
I AM curious to see what Abrams comes up with in Star Wars. As everybody else has noted, it really does seem to be a better fit for his skillset.
And since it actually takes place after the original films, hopefully he won't spend Episode 8 recreating Empire.