Then Orcs of Thar would still be racist. Clearly it's more than just that.
Probably. But also probably not enough to get rid of all of the problems with it.
For me, it's generally an "I'll know it when I see it" kind of thing. People of those cultures might have specific points. It depends on the culture, the execution, and the tone that the product has about that culture. But a core part of avoiding caricaturing a culture is to involve people of that culture (or that have studied it extensively and know about the topic). Cultural consultants are important. And early D&D products based on real-world cultures, from what I've heard, did not have them. The upcoming Radiant Citadel and Mystara have similar ideas of adopting real-world cultures for D&D settings, but I have no doubt that Radiant Citadel will do it better than Mystara did.