Did Romans recognise the fall of the republic?

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Perhaps I do draw class lines too clear-cut(at least among patricians) but I still feel the great families were very aware of their ancestry and importance to the Republic and may have resented being in second place behind the Emperor

There's no question that the great families were aware of their ancestry and importance to the Republic; but what you had originally painted them as were non-ideological, class-conscious power-mongers. Plus even their aristocratic ancestry derived from service to the Republic, so all of their claims to nobility could be subsumed under that one ideological thing. They weren't after power, they were after dignitas, when in fact only a few, the corrupt people like Verres or Catiline, were after power as such.

I also don't argue with the fact that a few revolts may have been inspired by republican ideals. When Caligula was murdered(by another Cassius), the Senate did indeed debate over restoring the Republic, but then argued amongst itself over who would rule and so lost any chance it did have(and they never had support of the Praetorians or army for that matter).

This is actually one of the revolts I cited as well. They didn't have the support of the Praetorians but they did take over the Capitoline Hill, and established the republic until Claudius' legions battered down the gates.

So I can't deny that some amount of Republicanism survived. But the fact that the entire senate never did support such a move suggests to me that most of the senate wasn't particularly interested in restoring the Republic,or at least was more interested in self-preservation.

Yes but this has always been the case. Remember the blind Appius Claudius being carried into the Senate, to protest the cowardly Senators from signing a peace treaty with Pyrrhus. It was never up to the generality of the Senate, but up to its leaders, to make or break Senatorial policy. And I say that while at some times the leaders of the Senate were clearly focused on self-preservation, at other times those leaders were tremendously pro-Republican and swayed the whole Senate towards that way. Helvidius Priscus was one such example, snubbing Vespasian, and a generation earlier his father-in-law Thrasea Paetus led the Senate against Nero, in much the same way as Cato Uticensis marshalled the (somewhat unwilling) Senate against Caesar a century before.

-Epictetus I.2:
"When Vespasian sent for Helvidius Priscus and commanded him not to go into the Senate, he replied, "It is in your power not to allow me to be a member of the Senate, but so long as I am, I must go in." "Well, go in then," says the emperor, "but say nothing." "Do not ask my opinion, and I will be silent." "But I must ask your opinion." "And I must say what I think right." "But if you do, I shall put you to death." "When then did I say that I was immortal?"