Its not about "copying" running times.
the genre that JACKMAN'S Wolverine falls under is comprised of movies that are usually 90 -100 minutes long.
Dirty Harry didn't "copy" A Fistful of Dollars in running time.
MAD MAX didn't "copy" Death Wish in its running time.
These films are simply just able to tell their revenge story in an hour and 40 minutes.
That's the problem though McCabe.
Instead of looking at this project as a Wolverine movie first and foremost. (Meaning, he's a character that's been around for a good number of decades who has a lot of history not to mention a huge fanbase from the comics alone) The film makers(whether it's Hood, Benioff/Wein, Jackman or all Rothman) as well as the number of fans who seem to be happy accepting a really short and seemingly typical Fox film are looking at this film more as a revenge film...like Mad Max and some of the other ones you listed than a Wolverine film, where revenge is only part of it.
Another thing. Like I mentioned in my previous post, the reason those other films were able to tell their stories(and the reason why it worked and was perfectly fine/OK)was because those stories and characters were first created and came to life on the scripts.
I don't recall any of those characters from those 70's/80's films having a number of decades worth of history that the movies were based on. With those characters/films it started with someone who had an idea to have this guy almost die but then be brought back as a cyborg cop. Or have a cop who always got the **** end of the stick and was tougher and more of a badass than the rest of the cops hence the name Dirty Harry.
They were created on scripts to be made into film characters. It was up to the screenplay writer or creator(or even studio for that matter)where they figured they could make a good story for these characters only needing 90-100 minutes.
With Wolverine, yeah you can make a movie based on his history(or a portion of it)only lasting 90-100 minutes...but it really makes you have to shorten things and cut things out to fit that runtime. Not to mention shorten or cut existing characters within his history. But in Fox's case they add characters like Gambit simply because they know the fans have been wanting him.
Much like Emma Frost/White Queen, they won't be done much justice since they're mainly in there as fan bait being in a film that is and should be focusing on the main character(Wolverine) and the few people that are truly important to his story(Creed, Stryker, Silverfox).
People already complained about this for X-3 and I'll say what they essentially said. Some of us would much rather have Gambit replaced with some 'drinking card player' than throw him in to get the fans excited but only having him in one maybe two scenes with little to no character development.