People tend to have starry eyed views of successful empires that not only conquered a lot of territory, but were able to rule for some time. Because there is inherent difficulty in administering areas spanning many cultures, ethnicities, creeds.

Most of those things you said can apply to the Assyrians, the Romans, the British, or any other similar empire, and people still idealize those places today. If your empire holds together long enough to get a period of Pax named after you, it means you've made it in the eyes of history.