It's hard to say with much certainty. The state apparatus of the Empire is likely to continue to give the Romans a number of distinct strengths and weaknesses, the latter of which IMO are much more likely to worsen in the near-mid term. Those being of course, the weakness of the Empire in managing modern trade, the erosion of the traditional tax base, and the rising trends in separatism. A strong emperor, such as the Laskaris, would certainly be able to manage the latter, but from Manzikert onwards no emperor was ever able to stamp out the trend towards local rulers/magnates asserting themselves.
The economic problems are worse. The Italian city states do and will continue to dominate Roman trade. Constantinople may have been at a high point in 1200, but the wealth it generated was not really going into the Emperor's coffers. The land-based system of wealth generation was still ruined post-Manzikert, leaving the empire with an unstable tax base. This was not a terminal issue, but certainly an intractable one. Again, a strong emperor could (and when they existed did) manage the problems to a degree, but resolving them they could not. Roman culture at the time was not amenable to large scale changes, and unlike their Ottoman conquerers the Romans were not going to be able to simply overawe more economically savvy opponents with sheer power.
None of this is to say that the Empire is doomed. It did still have a number of strengths, in particular in terms of raising and supplying relatively large and powerful armies that could go toe to toe with most European forces (albeit usually supplemented by Western Europeans), and so long as Constantinople was unconquered it was very difficult for anyone to project power into the Thracian heartland for an extended period of time. A series of strong Komnenoi-style emperors would certainly be able to re-establish a stable, strong state. I doubt reconquering the Bulgarians is going to be easy, though, and retaking Anatolia would require not just the ever-elusive energy to concentrate on a single front but also a level of vision that even the Komnenoi lacked.
Many people assume that the Nicaean Empire represents a model of what an undivided Roman Empire could achieve in the early 13th century. That is, an efficient, united, nativist state that could progressively restore Roman fortunes. Beyond noting that the Nicaeans had unusual good luck in their enemies ruining each other and a quiet eastern front, what made Nicaea a more efficient state would be difficult to replicate from Constantinople - as Michael VIII found. Nicaea had an ideological unity in terms of retaking the City, but also a geographic and cultural unity absent in a trans-Bosporun Empire. It focused on itself, and was very successful, for a time. This focus vanished as soon as the Emperor ceased to be himself focused on Anatolia, and indeed Anatolia was quickly alienated. The particulars are not inevitable, but I think the overall takeaway is this: managing the much larger populations of the late medieval era and the much larger diffusions of power this created was a very challenging task that OTL the Empire failed, and while this was not inevitable the Roman Empire was not just waiting for some visionary to restore Basil II's domain. Rather, his successors faced challenges that he never did, and while they failed this does not mean that anyone else would not have.
The economic problems are worse. The Italian city states do and will continue to dominate Roman trade. Constantinople may have been at a high point in 1200, but the wealth it generated was not really going into the Emperor's coffers. The land-based system of wealth generation was still ruined post-Manzikert, leaving the empire with an unstable tax base. This was not a terminal issue, but certainly an intractable one. Again, a strong emperor could (and when they existed did) manage the problems to a degree, but resolving them they could not. Roman culture at the time was not amenable to large scale changes, and unlike their Ottoman conquerers the Romans were not going to be able to simply overawe more economically savvy opponents with sheer power.
None of this is to say that the Empire is doomed. It did still have a number of strengths, in particular in terms of raising and supplying relatively large and powerful armies that could go toe to toe with most European forces (albeit usually supplemented by Western Europeans), and so long as Constantinople was unconquered it was very difficult for anyone to project power into the Thracian heartland for an extended period of time. A series of strong Komnenoi-style emperors would certainly be able to re-establish a stable, strong state. I doubt reconquering the Bulgarians is going to be easy, though, and retaking Anatolia would require not just the ever-elusive energy to concentrate on a single front but also a level of vision that even the Komnenoi lacked.
Many people assume that the Nicaean Empire represents a model of what an undivided Roman Empire could achieve in the early 13th century. That is, an efficient, united, nativist state that could progressively restore Roman fortunes. Beyond noting that the Nicaeans had unusual good luck in their enemies ruining each other and a quiet eastern front, what made Nicaea a more efficient state would be difficult to replicate from Constantinople - as Michael VIII found. Nicaea had an ideological unity in terms of retaking the City, but also a geographic and cultural unity absent in a trans-Bosporun Empire. It focused on itself, and was very successful, for a time. This focus vanished as soon as the Emperor ceased to be himself focused on Anatolia, and indeed Anatolia was quickly alienated. The particulars are not inevitable, but I think the overall takeaway is this: managing the much larger populations of the late medieval era and the much larger diffusions of power this created was a very challenging task that OTL the Empire failed, and while this was not inevitable the Roman Empire was not just waiting for some visionary to restore Basil II's domain. Rather, his successors faced challenges that he never did, and while they failed this does not mean that anyone else would not have.
