I love seeing references to other media in my media. I love it when a cartoon references shakespeare, a movie references classic film, or an artist references an old master. Seeing this trail of inspiration unfold is like uncovering the very end of crime novel- it's satisfying in a way that solving a puzzle is satisfying.
Yet there is also an element of exclusivity when an artist purposefully includes references. You and the director/author/artist share media interests. It reminds me of the high brow geek culture that turns up its nose to people who can't list random Star Trek and Star Wars facts from memory. As if in understanding the reference you are better be able to understand the story. And this might be true (not that I'm campaigning for reference knowledge snobbery).
What definitely is true is that knowing your audience's media knowledge and referencing this knowledge is an excellent pandering strategy. A strategy that we can use in our art work by making our audience feel like an exclusive group who are special for understanding our inspiration. Adopting this method sort of feels like going to the dark side, but hey, who ever said art is pretty?
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