The problem was (is) people want to go to the places in the movies. That’s why Wizarding World is so successful-and easy. There are definite places in the Harry Potter universe that are visited time and time again in the stories. So Universal has blueprints already to work with.
Star Wars is different in that we don’t spend a whole lot of time in any one particular planet. Yes, a few stand out more than others such as Hoth, Endor, Sky City, and Tatooine. But again we don’t spend a lot of time on any one in particular. Which meant whichever actual planet they chose people were going to say, “oh they should have built this planet instead!”
But, I think Disney should have gone ahead and made the difficult choice and picked a real location. Creating a fictional planet makes sense from a story telling stand point, but you lose all emotional connection that the films have built up. It’s Star Wars...but not any that we know. We know the characters, the drinks, the droids, but it feels foreign because we can’t anchor it to a location.
It would be like if Universal built a Potter land but created a new Wizard school in Australia. Sure Harry, Hermonie, and Ron may be there, and butter beer, and wizard robes but it wouldn’t feel right.
That’s the problem Disney created for themselves when they chose to create a fictional plant for their land. This should have been an easy home run-slam dunk of a land but they managed to screw it up because they over thought it!