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> The fact of the matter is, they were strictly more technologically advanced than the classical Romans

No, they were more advanced in certain ways, but the original contention is correct that they were less advanced in others. Notably they were unable to build domes. They were also less productive, so less advanced in an overall sense.

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What do you mean when you say they were unable to build domes?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_medieval_Arabic_and...

Only the Western Roman Empire fell and even that part was fairly on track to recovery once Charlemagne came into the scene.

The fall of the Roman Empire is a pop history trope at this point.

Charlemagne empire wasn't an interconnected fabric of roads, trade, centralized administration and so forth, ie. it wasn't all that that Roman Empire was, and all that having gone is the fall of Roman Empire. Charlemagne empire was just an aggregation of conquered lands under his personal rule which thus he easily divided between his sons.

Yes, but my point was that a large state was created and managed centrally for quite a long time, and even the successor states were large.

More than that, technology continued to evolve. The Romans had nothing like Medieval plate armor, for example. There are many examples of better tech from the supposed "Dark Ages".

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