Can a modern audience comprehend Austen?

I am on something of a Jane Austen binge lately, or perhaps I should say suffering from post-Austen withdrawal.  What does one do when one has read all the works of this lovely authoress?  Read the sequels of course.  There are approximately seven hundred million sequels to Pride and Prejudice alone, some of them quite good, others scandalous, and a few apparently written by people who haven't read anything Austen or so it seems.  One thing I have discovered in my search for the heirs of Jane, is that there are many books written that completely miss the whole flavor of Austen and seem directed at an audience that would die of boredom reading the original.  What with lurid bedroom scenes and the undead running about, one hardly has time to drink tea, exchange witty dialogue, or languish over needlework, wondering if one will die an old maid.  I do not like knowing if I will turn a page only to turn scarlet after accidentally walking into the midst of too much information.  I do not need to know the precise details of what happened after the wedding, thank you very much!  If Jane would not have written it, it has no place in a supposed sequel to one of her esteemed works.  Miss Austen might find the inclusion of vampires, zombies, and such in some of her classics an odd affectation, she might almost find it droll, but I think she would be appalled to find the vulgar modern adaptations touted as true heirs to her crown.  Perhaps they need a rating system on books as they have for movies!  One might be good literature and the next is little more than a verbal orgy, but that is perhaps the only language modern minds understand.

I saw the most recent theatrical adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and came away dissatisfied, thinking the plot would make little sense to our jaded modern virtues.  Why was it a scandal for Wickham to run off with Lydia?  Quite confusing, really, unless you understand the so-call 'traditional' mores.  Who cares about morality, when we can have a steamy bedroom scene?  Or maybe we can sneak in a commentary on women's rights or vegetarianism.  These are the ethical standards of today.  Any restrictions on sexual behavior whatsoever are downright Victorian, as long as we can read about it (in minute detail) who cares?  With this mindset, how is anyone to appreciate Austen?  We have become a culture of hedonists and have lost more than our virtue.  We have also lost our cultural heritage and our ability to appreciate the greater things in life.  I think Miss Austen would weep for that more than for the denigration of her stories.