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Italians are not the same thing as Romans. They did not see themselves as Romans. My understanding is that the Roman Republic's early rise to power was based in part on their willingness to assimilate other Italian powers into a new political concept rather than just attempting to utterly crush, enslave, subjugate, and kill them.
Kinda but not really. Look up the Social War. Rome tried to keep Italy as subject vassals with no political representation well past the point it became politically non-viable. They did allow regional autonomy, but viewed conquered populations as their natural lessers, and kept it that way until they had been hegemon over the Mediterranean for over fifty years (The Punic Wars and Macedonian Wars ended in the 140s BC, the Social War in 87 BC).
They were relatively tolerant, but they conquered most of the known world and kept it as their footstool for a couple generations on an ethnic nationalism model (for citizens of the city of Rome, specifically).
The transition to civic nationalism followed in degrees over the next few centuries.
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And this was specific to italic peoples, it was not extended to iberians or illyrians or celts, among other early non-italic conquests.
Trajan (98-117) and Hadrian (117-138) were born in Hispania - the sources disagree on how ethnically Italian they were (most elites in the Italic colonies in Hispania were of mixed Italian-Spanish ancestry) but it didn't appear to matter politically. The Italic colonies in Hispania received the ius Latinum under the late Republic (meaning that local elites would acquire full Roman citizenship over time) and all of Hispania did in 74AD. So "not extended to Iberians" appears to be false by the 1st century AD.
The next dubiously-Italian emperor was Septimus Severus (193-211) - his mother was Italian, but his father was Carthaginian. Because tribal affiliation was inherited in the male line in Rome, he would not have been considered Italian by his subjects. His wife was Arab, so Caracalla (211-217) was only 1/4 Italian by blood quantum. After that ethnically Italian Emperors are the exception, not the rule. But I think you can argue that the empire is already in decline by that point.
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Agreed that bringing Italy into the club was crucial to their success, but an essentially Italian empire is different from civic nationalism which would include anyone. I think there's a balancing act there where if you include too few people under your umbrella then you're small and vulnerable but if you open things up too much then you lose cohesion.
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