I'm curious if you've used useDeepCompareEffect, the use-deep-compare-effect npm package? I've found that it is pretty reasonable foolproofing for many of these identity questions. I'm well aware of Dan Abramov's objections to the deep equality checking [1] but I still find it a bit easier for me and other devs to reason about when doing things like data fetching.

[1] https://twitter.com/dan_abramov/status/1104414469629898754