I do not think that you understand what Soviet system was about. What Putin is doing is establishing a strong presidential system, not so different that De Gaulle had in mind. It is well suited for Russia.
The decentralised structures like republics, autonomous regions etc ... with intentionally gerrymandered borders were created by the SOVIETS! It was balanced by the totalitarian unified party and so it was not leading to the chaos.
Same utopian decentralised social engineering was tried in Yugoslavia and ended in the civil war when Tito was gone. In case of Soviet Union it led to the peaceful breakup of the Union according to the Soviet internal borders what was a miracle.
Resulting republics have significant minorities (the largest being Russians in the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Estonia) but consensus was to keep the borders intact. Each resulting state had to undergo some form of uniformization and centralisation with Russia being the last to do it.
The reason Putin is so popular is that Russians learned their lesson from the time of Yeltsin rule - their country experienced the rule of mobsters cooperating with foreign corporations, dramatic fall in standard of living expressing itself in unprecedented shortening of life expectancy and constant predations by the criminal/tribal gangs.
Russia is simply too big, too complex and too cold country to become a banana republic. Strong central government is what the doctors prescribed. Do not wish for chaos and turmoil in Russia as nothing good would come from it.
Yeah, BUT---
What about the theory that 'the lowest possible unit of governance should resolve problems,' which would seem to imply a localized control system is ideal?
Are you saying that Russia (old Soviet Union) is incapable of operating under that theory?