If a Bourbon Prince had accepted the Mexican throne, I believe the country would have walked a far easier path.
The Hispanic-American nations weren't "republicans". The Hispanic-American attraction to strong leaders, with regimes where parades, celebrations, and all that are common is nothing more but an holdover from those nations' monarchic pasts. The problem is that the dictators wanted to behave like kings, but lacked legitimacy, and ended up becoming more authoritarian trying to hold to power.
Make Mexico get a Bourbon prince and you'll have a second "Empire of Brazil" in North America. It's not the date of independence, but how it became independent.