They also had a functional Dictatorship system. Well, functional for a time... until it went wrong. I think they were actually onto something with that idea though. The flaws likely could have been corrected. A common theme with most dictatorships gone awry is a rogue general, but the real problem is a military comprised of men that are willing to follow a rogue general.
Most dictatorships and kingships are functional when the person in charge is. The problem is that when they go awry, they can go extremely awry, and many innocent people get caught in the twists; and so the lands that had been gradually accumulated during the centuries of the Republic gradually slipped away under the inconsistent rule of the Empire. Democracies have the great advantage that, while they don't function as efficiently at their best, they never go quite as awry as Caligula or Pol Pot.
Rome, of course, had many occasions where the military was no longer willing to follow a rogue commander (the literal translation of Latin imperator, usually translated as emperor). So they kicked him out and installed a new one, in what we now call a coup d'état. The problem is, it turns out that militaries are not particularly good at determining which commanders are acting in accordance with the commonweal of the nation and which are not. The values you need to run a successful regiment are not the same values you need to run a successful country, and in many ways, they are opposite.
So I don't think that encouraging mutinies in the military really solves the problem.
The political issues also aren't really all that clear cut.
While Julius Caesar's opponents called themselves "The Good", and were indeed the principle actors of the Roman Republic, the Roman Senate was also a homogenous bunch of rich assholes (nothing at all like our current Senate). Caesar was allied with a number of outsiders, including a number of liberated women, who felt oppressed by the old Republic.
That's not to say the Roman Empire was flowers and gummy bears, or would have been if Caesar had lived. Or that it was even better or could have been better than the Republic. But losing the oligarchical Republic wasn't necessarily that big a tragedy.
More like their conquer and receive tribute strategy started to not work any more and military technology and techniques were transferred to their conquered territories.
That was the downfall of the Roman Empire; the downfall/transition of the Roman Republic (the one with dictators, not emperors) was of a different nature, which is not quite as easy to sum up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Roman_Republic
Nobody cares about anything unless it disturbs their daily rituals. At the end of the day, if they are still able to go to work, collect a paycheck, watch a movie, see their family, they aren't going to care.
Similarly with government workers. They don't care. They want a paycheck. It's not their fault, it's somebody else.
Until the government starts pointing fingers, nothing is going to happen.
It is not rational to agree with being spied on, lied to, and having our rights revoked. It's apathetic, and frankly, disgusting. Long as we can still instagram and facebook and tweet whatever the fuck we had for lunch today!!!!!! Right?
But of course, this doesn't apply to the Government.
Why can't someone in power admit that surveillance has gotten out of bounds, maybe illegally, rather than devise ways to counter such divulgations?