Hm intresting. Would it be possible for the empire in its entirety to survive if they went fedual?
Actually the medieval serfdom, which was one base of feudalism was invented by the romans and taken over by the germans. The germans knew just slavery initially.
Other elements of feudalism were also already (partially) in place.
- looking to the foederati, which have been the core of the army of the late WRE, the army was provided by warlords
- sometimes the magister militum himself provided a private army (bucellarii)
- for the foederati as well as for the roman emperors fealty ended with the death of one partner
- some german rituals (e.g. about faith and fealty) were undertaken
So the late roman empire was already a bit on its way to feudalism. But were these feudal elements beneficial or detriemental?
I would prefer a roman empire with a more developed ancient culture.
PS: Once a historian said: "If the WRE would have existed a bit longer, it would have been consecutive, if the big landlords, which became more and more warlords too, provide not recruits but trained and equiped full armies."
And now we got a feudal roman empire. Actually the the western roman state of the 5th century was already that desintegrated. How this could work together with the strictly centralistic approach of the roman emperors is an open question. Well, perhaps we should look how the ERE did this change after Herakleios.