The Solo Leveling anime adapts a Korean Manhwa, so maybe not the best example here. Not that there is any shortage of male wish fulfilment in original Japanese works.
Overlord does a better job with grimdark. I'm fond of Log Horizon though S3 sucked. Solo Leveling came out the same time as Weakest Tamer began a journey to pick up Trash, and that was delightful for me.
I think the visceral stuck at the bottom of the ladder feeling was better handled by weakest tamer. A young girl who was forced to run away from home because her village considered her 0-star skill literally a heresy and religious blight.
Unlike Solo Leveling, the Weakest Tamer actually sticks with the plot. She never becomes much more powerful than she was, and instead leverages her relationships / friends she makes rather than literally solo leveling.
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The Isekai / Reverse Isekai genre is literally animes biggest genre right now. There's so so so many better shows out there than Solo Leveling.
But I guess the question is: what do you like about it? Solo Leveling is a passable male fantasy do-it-myself-by-plot-armor always win kind of show. But.... This plot honestly has been done better back by Sword Art Online (and I didn't even like that anime either).
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Jobless Reincarnation, despite all the controversy, is probably the local optimum on that 'Do it myself' / solo leveling / get stronger loop.
Hmmmmm... I'd give either Reincarnated as a Slime or I'm a Spider, So What? As my top picks on this genre / storytelling style. For personal enjoyment. Maaayyyyybe Re:Zero if you're into the body horror stuff that Solo Leveling also does.
Shun is an underdog who is suddenly thrust into war because the Spider Demon Queen attacks. He obtains the sacred power of the hero and is the one destined to kill demon lords.
Fortunately for our Spider protagonist, Kumoko is not the demon lord but just an underling (a major underling... but nonetheless an underling) of the Spider Demon.
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IMO, it's fun to see Shun do 'Regular Isekai Things' while Kumoko has to survive in the dark dungeon.
It's also very interesting to me that Shun's entire world and story ends up being irrelevant in terms of world powers.
Still, I love street level and other such 'less powered' beings in my stories. It gives you a sense of what the ordinary humans are up to while our Spider is leveling up in the dungeons.
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Solo leveling doesn't do the power of friendship thing that Shun and his party does. But otherwise, Sung Jinwoo is a chosen 'hero' of sorts thrust into a role. Much like Shun is suddenly chosen by God to be a hero as the skill passed to him.
It's from Shuns perspective that we see how Kumoko's far away actions have a rippling effect onto human society. It's an integral part of the story despite being a bit more boring.
But that’s a different plot than Solo Leveling, and in particular, a female rather than male power fantasy. (Social control vs individual strength.)
Your criticism that Solo Leveling isn’t something it wasn’t meant to be is strange.
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The number of anime that goes in the direction of Weakest Tamer is ... much fewer. A bit of variety and branching out is nice.
I'm not even sure what in Solo Leveling sets it apart that all the other shows didn't do better.
I can say that Overlords focus on leadership / kingsctaft is next to none. Slime's leadership and optimism sets it apart from Overlord even if Overlord does the leadership thing better.
Demon Slayer has better animation.
Sword Art Online came out first and was freshest (there were older Isekai but not this Solo Leveling type aloneness / level up grind).
Spider So What was one of the most compressed boss raid stories with the shear number of fights being quite impressive.