Kerensky was a failure that would ultimately end it catastrophe anyway. He embodied all weaknesses of governments that came before him and after him (tsar and bolsheviks), and none their strengths. He claimed legitimacy on grounds of democracy, but didn't have elections (most likely he was afraid people would vote for pacifist parties, whereas he was a warmonger). He demanded constitutional assembly, but he abolished monarchy by executive decree, and not popular vote. He was unable to either take control over army, nor cooperate with it. He backstabbed Kornilov who supported him, but released Bolshevik prisoners who ended up turning against him. He gave people freedom of speech and press, but no elections, bread, or land, so all problems that were accumulating over time exploded now that everyone could openly talk about them.
imperial bureaucrats never controlled the countryside more than superficially: the number of imperial bureaucrats in the countryside were in the 10ks, there were over 100 million+ people living there by the late 1800s/early 1900s
the weakness of the tsarist system was precisely that it never had real control over the countryside but rather relied on the squires and landed aristocracy to govern it for them
That's kind of myth really. Even since Alexander II set up Obshchina village communes, bureaucracy meant to manage it kept bloating. Before that fiasco of reform there might've been only 10k bureacrats in the countryside, after that it was a lot more.
And extent to which whole system wasn't bureaucratized, it was the feature, not a bug.
I am sure some Soviets said that USA had "no real control over its territory" because it didn't micromanage every single farm and workshop. "Look comrade how weak those yankees are, they can't even torture kulaks children to get them to turn over the hidden grain! Hahaha!"
Just because something doesn't work the way someone think it should work, doesn't mean it doesn't work the way it's meant to work.