In this I could not more strongly disagree with you. Decentralization has time and time again proven to be a strength. No authority has proven to be perfect. It is a strength to have 50+ different sets of people independently trying solutions to a problem, stress testing it, seeing what doesn't work, copying ideas from other groups that got something better, and iterating over and over to improve. Top-down, centrally controlled solutions are brittle and do not evolve solutions nearly as fast as a distributed, federalism approach.
If you want an authoritarian strong man to come to power, the best way to do it is to build this type of centralized instrument of control because then all the strongman has to do is gain control of that one thing. For security, it is far safer to have power decentralized with no single point capable of taking down the system.