A controlled Soviet collapse required reform before the crisis

Could the Soviet Union have collapsed in a controlled way that left Russia in a stronger position?

Only if meaningful reform had begun before the Soviet system reached its terminal crisis. Once reform came too late, an orderly transition was no longer realistic.

A controlled transition would have required institutions capable of reforming the Soviet system before its failures became irreversible. The late reform effort arrived after that opportunity had largely passed. Moving away from a collective dictatorship without a prepared political settlement made a disruptive collapse much more likely. Russia's later structural problems belong partly to how the post-collapse order was built, rather than to a realistic alternative in which the final Soviet breakdown itself remained orderly.