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Subtlety is the key - it has to seem incidental to be good, I think.
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Quite right. The man who repairs one's washing machine isn't likely to discuss the Medici popes or the Hundred Years' War, however interesting they might be to an eavesdropping visitor to the planet; how many antiques dealers would say "This bureau was made for Napoleon III", and then relate the entire history of Imperial France, from Revolution to Republic? If the interaction between two characters seems unlikely when placed into an equivalent real-life context then it probably won't work in Flobadobalopolis; Nutopia or the Mystic Kingdom of Kashmeichek either.
Still, I suppose that there'll always be bad writing in every genre; always said that the spread of literacy was a waste of trees.