Adam Katz can you explain this a bit more clearly?

You're right that "qualities" is too vague. The real point is that subjects can't respond to a perceived crisis in the way the Big Man did, by seizing the center. The problem is that seizing the center is the precedent that has been set as a way of resolving a crisis. That's what's the "same." But you are reading rightly that the problem is that the God-emperor must curtail productive activity on the part of his subjects. There has to be some way for subjects to have a productive relation to the center. This is part of an explanation of why this social form, despite its successes, and the fact that it lasted a long time, can't be revived. The subsequent discussion points to the historical resolution of this dilemma, with the new dilemmas that produces.

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That's possible, and would make sense. I'm very wary about applying HLvM to the ancient world because I don't know enough about how God-Emperor rule actually worked--it may be that we don't know enough about it.