To answer your question regarding the astronauts and Mission Control not being on the same page. Very few people - including most of the people at Mission Control - knew the missions were faked.
This is a standard claim that also fails for reasons of practicality. Just from the Apollo 12 case you have 3 astronauts who must know, plus the stand-ins you suggest were used in the advance photographs, plus anyone and everyone who worked in the soundstage, plus those at mission control who had the script you claim they worked to. That's already a lot of people who know it was faked. How have they all kept silent?
But what of the companies who built the spacecraft? How many of them know it was faked? If you don't tell a bunch of engineers you have asked to build something that it doesn't have to work, they build working hardware, so why fake it? If Apollo 14, 15 and 16 were genuine then the hardware must have worked. Why was it not used on the other missions?
It is not sufficient to handwave 'a few' people know it was faked. You have to demonstrate you have understood who would need to be in on the fake, who would definitely spot it, and how all these people have been kept silent.