“Before that shot in Sarajevo there was a Romanov dynasty, a Hohenzollern, a Habsburg, a Wittelsbach, and the entirety of the Ottoman empire.”
I think these dynasties were a large part of the problem.
Their decline was, yes, but understand that the newest of these, the Romanov, had been around since 1610, and the rest were centuries older. That was governmental stability for central Europe, however decrepit, and a managed decline such as Ferdinand had in mind would have been far preferable to their simultaneous disappearance within only one year. That shock made all of central Europe, not just Germany, lost and in a power vacuum the world hadn't seen since the fall of the Roman empire. Picking over the ruins were weak elective governments and thugs such as the Bolsheviks and the Nazis.
Part of the perceived weakness of the Romanovs were their attempts at reform - with no war they might have had the time for a graceful landing. With it they had defeat in the field and the Bolsheviks at the door. Germany as a nation was less than a half century old. Turkey had already given power to the Young Turks but with defeat in the field the Sultan had to go. The Wittelsbachs might have stabilized what became the birthplace of the Nazi party had their Crown Prince not been a German field marshal and abdication their only option.
Consider the Balkans, where the war started, fought over by Russia, Turkey, and Habsburg Austria for centuries, suddenly bereft of all three. One might hope that would result in peace, but what resulted was chaos. Those same parties are still fighting over the scraps of empire to this very day.