Seriously, the way the New World Pirates, And Division Commanders, and even the Marines were portrayed during Marineford was horrible. The basics Haki were just being introduced, and even the concept of "Advanced" haki, and Awakening DF had not even been invented at that point. The Division Commanders during Marineford verses WCI and going forward are leaps and bounds different.
Wrong, the Admirals used Advanced Armament Haki level 1 to block Whitebeards attack. They also used observation haki to dodge avoid Whitebeard and his commander's attacks.
Advanced Haki was introduced Pre timeskip, Sentumaru used on Luffy, The Kuja of Amazon lily used it on there weapons.
Garp used the rare Advanced Armament Haki level 2 to attack Marco from the inside out.
Keep in Mind that none of the Admirals were able to hurt Marco at all without seastone cuffs. Akainu was stopped completely by Marco, and could not get past him in the manga at all. Marco physically overpowered Kizaru.
Luffy used observation to dodge Mihawks attacks, with Mihawk even commenting on Luffy being unusually calm.
Luffy also used Conquerors Haki at Marineford.