Thoughts on High Fantasy with Historical Analogues?

So I just finished The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang and it had me thinking about fantasy novels that rely on historical analogues (i.e. in Poppy War, Nikan is China, Mugen is Japan, set in a fantasy WWII-era East Asia with direct historical parallels a la the Nanjing Massacre).

I was wondering what people think of essentially fantasy-izing (?) real history (as opposed to historical fantasy, which is set in real world earth and has fantastical elements). The way I've mostly seen it done in fantasy just seems a little pointless at best, lazy at worst. At least to me, real history tends to be way more fascinating than any fantasy version of it, so unless the fantasy is doing something unique or trying to explore human nature in some way, I'd rather just read about the real thing or find historical fiction set in that period. A lot of times it comes off as lazy to me, especially if the author didn't do much research (don't get me started on Shadow and Bone) and is just copying a real life setting instead of doing the hard work of good world-building.

I do think it can be done well - not to shit on Poppy War too much but I think Avatar: The Last Airbender essentially does what Poppy War tries to do and does it way better, actually exploring moral questions through a fantasy version of East Asia and incorporating different real-world philosophies in trying to make sense of a world gone mad.

But even bad examples can lead people to actually read about the history, which is a good thing, but that's assuming that they recognize the historical parallel.

Also, to clarify, I'm not talking about history being a general inspiration for a fantasy world, since most fantasy worlds are based on existing human cultures/settings. I'm talking about fantasy whose setting and plot points are directly parallel to real historical events or dynamics.

All that said - are there other good examples of this being done well? Do folks generally find this type of thing lazy or boring?