A lazy copy has of course always been lame, but it also depends on when in the 90s, and the platform.

There were plenty of images that amazed me back then even though I was perfectly aware of the source material. It depends on the platform, and the amount of effort going into recreating it. Reinterpreting an image for a C64 or Amiga with a restricted palette is a skill in itself. Copying it for a platform, or in a style / resolution / bitmap depth, where you might as well use a scanner, not so much (and so, of course, the accusations became more and more frequent, often warranted).

Copying it and trying to pass something off as original is of course also very different from acknowledging the original and letting the conversion stand on its own as what it is.