What attracts you to Late Rome?

[Robert Vermaat]

Also, Aetius managed to achieve a stable Rhine border several times by pushing the franks back past Colonia and Trier.

Did he really? With what? Ther are other opinions about that 'stable frontier'...

But in reality, I don't think there was any hope for the west.

I don't why why the West would not have been able to hang on longer, without the crisis of the early 5th c. that cascaded into the downfall 50 years later.

Without stability and some way to motivate new recruits, along with a reformed economic system (rome was horribly oppressive and somewhat socialist) collapse was inevitable.

In the end, sure, but Constantinople managed to hang on for another millennium, changing on the way..