Reading the replies made me think that perhaps I should outline my essential assumptions for this TL- would appreciate feedback.
The first is that the French revolution unleashed a revolution in social and millitary organization which came at the right time, technologically speaking. The type of mass mobilization which the French revolution introduced enabled the government to take a seventeen year old boy, shove a bayoneted musket in his hands, shove nationalist revolutionary propaganda in his mind and within a few weeks turn him into a killing machine that was, if not quite the equal, at least of comparable effectiveness in lethality to a professional mercenary with a decade of experience, and often greater motivation (which is also why this is the time mercenaries went out of business- they weren't cost effective). Two centuries earlier, or later, this would have been impossible. The weapons tech required far more training to achieve individual skill, effective arms were too expensive relative to productive capabilities to arm the entire nation, and the form of warfare was not amenable to mass formations marching in blind obedience.
The second is that the revolution enabled the republic to draw on a much wider pool of millitary talent. Napoleon, and most of his marshals, never could have reached the top under the ancien regime. Sure, they had their equivalents among the coalition members- Archduke Charles, Suvorov and Horatio Nelson come to mind (Wellington, with all due respect, is not in their league... but he still stood head and shoulders above the other land commanders of the UK) . But these names stand out as a minority. It took Ancien regimes far, far longer to sift through the chaff to find the grain amongst their pool of millitary talent, than it took their Republican/Imperial equivalents.
The obverse side to that coin is that the revolution also eliminated or exiled most of the officer with the skills and command experience (as opposed to raw talent). In terms of millitary leadership the Republic started low and then skyrocketed. Their learning curve started from a lower point but was steeper, allowing them to reach a qualitative plateau at the war of the Third Coalition. However, that is not to say that the Ancien regimes did not have a learning curve- Austria, in particular, was an example of this. If one compares their performance in the war of the Fifth coalition to that of the Third (or Second. Or First) one is struck by how much they had improved. In effect, post 1808 the Napoleonic regime had spent it's qualitative lead and was operating on a quantitative advantage- which it then squandored in Russia.
The third was that the French revolution also granted whoever was in control in Paris a fifth column of eager sympathizers in the neighboring states who could provide intelligence, sabotage, collaborationist regimes and recruits- and that this made French Rule, so long as it could be seen to serve local progressive ends, and so long as the revolution itself was not discredited, acceptable to important sections of the population in Italy and Germany- and of course Poland. In both France and it's satelites the regime felt it could ask more from it's people in terms of taxes, corvee labor and recruits- because they had more invested in the survival of the regime (in the case of France this was accompanied by agrarian redistribution which was economically ruinous in the long run to France's economic development but which created intense loyalty amongst many peasants in portions of France who feared that monarchial restoration meant they would have to give up their nearly acquired lands and pay massive back taxes).
Here too the Ancien regime adapted. Prussia abolished Serfdom after Jena, Britain changed the manner of it's rule of Ireland and carried out parlimentary reform, and Charles incongruously appealed in nationalist terms to the various nationalites that made up the polygot Austrian Empire.
The fourth is my assumption that class and ideology based identity of the revolutionary Republic had the potential ,much as in the USSR, to transcend regional and national differences- up to a point and provided that the threat of restoration loomed over them. Yet at the same time, the revolutionary regime created all sorts of antagonisms amongst classes and by all the ancien regime governments who feared, correctly, that they would be next on the chopping block.
Napoleon sought to combine the best of all worlds by offering a return to normalancy to the Church, international neighbors and the dispossesed classes of France- but at the same time retain sufficient Republican and meritocratic forms to retain the loyalties and allies of the revolution. to bind this difficult mix together he used a sophisticated propaganda machine, the cult of his personality and the dearly bought loyalty of the army. To that he added greater administrative efficiency and political stability, bringing France to the height of it's relative power between 1801-1807. Unfortunately his ego, grasping nature and misplaced nepotism meant he squandered that window of opportunity. In any event the contradictions in his policy undercut his legitimacy, and forced him to eventually rely on force, and force of personality alone.
The Fifth is that Napoleon was an incredibly talented individual both politically and millitarily. Where he led in person victory was nearly assured for most of his regime. Nor was he, exceptions aside, untalented in identifying, allying with, and delegating to people of similliarly high talents. But he lost his bloom relatively quickly. his health was never good and was made worse by his frequent campaigns. Much like his nephew much of his final failure can be laid on the door of ill health.
The Sixth is that France was already massively overpowered on the continent, under any regime, according to any measure. The revolution had unleashed it's potential but it did not create it. No single power could equal it- but it's geographic location, overseas ambitions, and, under the revolutionary regime, ideology meant that it was always surrounded by enemies. Napoleon's great achievement is that he managed to effectively knock up many of them- up to a point.
That point is that Napoleon never outright eliminated any of his great power rivals (His attempt to take over Spain, a reluctant ally, is the exception). Even when he held Vienna he never tried to break the Austrian Empire up completely. His evisceration of Prussia nontheless left it intact in it's core East German territories. And this came back to bite him on several occasions. But this was not an error, it was simply indicative of the multifront war that France faced. At no point could he afford to tie down his forces in a drawn out war of political extermination against a Great power for fear that his other rivals would turn on him. This was a function not only of the international context but of the technological and political limitations of the period. Armies were small dots on a wide landscape, and a much smaller proportion of the population than was the case in, say, WWI. Power, and changes in boundary had to be negotiated and as the Spanish rebellion and the various Polish insurrections demonstrated, governments did not enjoy a favorable position if an entire population rose against it. Only in the 20th century did govenments acquire a monopoly on advanced weaponary and transportation that made insurgents helpless against an opponent ruthless enough to use them... as few were after WWII.
The Seventh is that the longer France remained at war, all other things being equal, the more it's underlying demographic and economic strength was being sapped in comparision to it's rivals. In spite of Napoleon's success in "exporting" the costs of war to his enemies and satelites, France was still paying and bleeding relatively more than it's rivals, taken as an average over thirty years. The economic warfare between France and Britain harmed the former rather than the latter- and also more than it's continental allies/rivals.
The Eigthis that Napoleon's growing dominance on land up to 1807 were paralleled with growing inferiority on sea. By the time he rose to promiennce, possibly from the moment Britian entered the war, France had no real chance of challenging British supermacy in the Atlantic- if only because the existing British supermacy there prevented his Atlantic fleet from training and operating, which meant that man for man and ship for ship it was increasingly inferior to that of Britain. To have a chance of challenging the royal navy in the Atlantic and the Channel he needed a decade of peace and freedom from continental threats so he could build up a sufficient mass of ships to overcome the British qualitiative advantage. There was no way any British government would give him that. In the Med, OTOH, France's Geographic position and land superiority gave it the chance of achieving dominance- a chance which Napoleon largely threw away in his Egyptian expedition and was never able to recover.
The Ninth is that France was losing it's preminent position before Napoleon and that Napoleon merely accelerated it's decline. The Demographic exception of France could be obsereved, contrary to popular opinion, as early as 1770, and industrial revolution left France lagging behind many of it's neighbors partly, but not solely because the concentration of iron and coal left it shortchaged in comparision to Britain, Germany and Belgium.
The Tenth is that the growth of national feeling in Germany and Italy was a powerful force, that limited the long term viability of any Napoleonic empire but one that could be surmounted, up to a point by an empire offering social reform, economic opportunity political participation ,cultual/linguistic freedom, and, above all, a shared ideal and/or a chance to achieve national unification within that ideal.
The Bottom line, as far as this particular wank is concerned, is that in order to make for a good wank Napoleon needs to:
a. Decisively eliminate his potential continential rivals (Ie; Austria and Prussia) from the playing board at a time when France is at it's qualitative peak
b. Do so without engaging in long see-saw attritional warfare
c. Achieve dominance in the Med so he can build up a fleet capable of challenging Britain, at least as a spolier of it's international commerce.
d. Replace Austrian and Prussian dominance in Geermany and Italy with an administration which is both acceptable to enough of the locals to avoid becoming a drain, and which enables him to draw on the material and manpower of these regions to outmass the qualitatively superior British Economy. That means not placing his brother's behinds on thrones in places where nationalism is at odds with an integrative empire- Germany and Italy no, Poland possibly yes.
e. Offer the nations of his empire some kind of unifying ideal beyond brute force- one which can form the basis for long term economic, cultural and political integration.
f. Not invade the Russian interior (nibbling at the edges is barely doable).
g. Not provoke the entire SPanish nation to rebellion.
h. Make continuation of the war economically and politically impossible for Britain.
Edit: Oh, and I nearly forgot. He needs to do all of the above while still being Napoleon. Overgrasping, nepotistic, suspicious of any power not his own, not particularly fond of technological innovation (though not by any means the technophobe his detractors have made him out to be), etc. So no sudden introduction of railed roads or an inexplicable aversion to meddling in the Spanish succession or invading the Russian Interior, let alone a commitment to the rule of law and democracy for the sake of them. All changes to Napoleon's policy must flow from circumstances created by the original POD and his relatively greater success ITTL must be the result of chance, or at least design given a chance by changed circumstances, not WOG epiphanies.