FWIW, I think history has proven the anti-federalists correct. The more power is centralized, the more control it will take. A collection of cooperating states might have been unwieldy, but the only way to prevent centralized power is to have competing interests fight each other for influence.
The courts were always the weak link. When they started grabbing power, only swift action by the rest of government, to include taking away all their money, could have stopped them.
I respectfully disagree that competing interests fighting each other is the only way to prevent this.
For example, parents could start taking the responsibility to make sure that their children are being taught the roughly 28 pages of the Constitution and its amendments, particularly statutes like Section 8 of Article I, Article V and the 10th Amendment which clarify the Founding States' division of federal and state government powers. This is evidently something that has not been done since the Constitution was ratified imo.
The problem is that if every voter knew about the federal governent's constitutonally limited powers, then the networks would have to scramble to find another real-life soap opera to keep people's eyes glued to their TV screens between highly profitable commercials.