>I bet, for the people living in that time period, as a roman citizen of the Western Empire, not much would have changed, except for some details in taxation and military conscription. Oh yes, and the dude you pay taxes to was now a military leader of germanic descent who called himself King, instead of a individual of the roman aristocracy, who called himself Emperor.

In fact lots have changed, except if you constrain the consideration only to rural places. The life of a citizen in Rome before and after the collapse would have been very different (that said, the collapse indeed took centuries to be completed).