I tackle your counter factual questions.
Pic: What if Alexios and Bohemond could have worked together? FYI: Two real pictures photoshopped together.
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The History of Byzantium 
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I’m surprised by how high the Manzikert score is. I thought the post-Basil II episodes were partially preparing an argument that the loss of Anatolia was one of those things-with-many-causes that really can’t get untangled or avoided. The boulder rolling down hill and all that.
The Romans failed to change the way they fought steppe nomads after the Pecheneg wars earlier in the century.
Constantine X Doukas had lots of male relatives (his sons, his brother and his brother’s sons) who couldn’t succeed him but who would have strong claims to the throne against whoever did succeed him.
Eudokia married Romanos Diogenes (bringing him to power) specifically because he was an energetic leader who could lead an army in the field, which is exactly what he was doing at Manzikert.
Lastly the Roman state’s financial capacity wasn’t keeping up with its problems. Romanos IV Diogenes pursued a policy of domestic austerity while he was fighting in Anatolia or trying to save the last East Roman positions in Italy. Before him Constantine X Doukas had a policy of cutting military spending. Before him Isaac I Komnenos had a policy of higher taxes, confiscations of Church land, and eliminating payments to aristocrats. Had Romanos avoided the battle or even won there’s not guarantee that they would have been in stronger position to deal with a later invasion from the East.
All of this is to say that avoiding Manzikert was highly improbable.
But as I said in the episode
a) Alp Arslan didn’t want war with the Romans. It was bad luck the two sides met when they did
b) To your point I acknowledged that the Romans may well have still lost a confrontation with a Steppe force at some point. BUT the key to why Manzikert did so much damage was the way the civil wars played out. Those civil conflicts could have played out a dozen different ways that would have been better than the way it did