your knowledge of history is right in the gutters.
A- Mughals were mostly replaced by Mughal governors of local regions in most economically vibrant places of the empire, Maratha were neither powerful enough nor even a united single entity per se to actually be called an "empire." Similar to all those who ruled the subcontinent
They were defeated every time they faced an actual standing army where they didn't have to rely on looting and burning tactics, instead of actually fighting a standing army - ie both Afghans and British
Mughals who ruled for 100s of years and comparing them to actual looters whose war strategy was nothing but devastating the countryside through looting, burning, raping, and pillaging of all its wealth and resources till the opponent is weak enough to pounce.
And even then that power was never in its history organized enough to to actually be called an "empire" it was made up of various warlords whose whole strategy, at least outside of the Deccan heartland, was to pay unemployed horsemen, a lot of them Muslim, in loot.
It was always a self-eating entity from its inception, that's why it only actually lasted barely 50-70 years max and was defeated by both the British and the Afghans because it only knew how to fight bigger power through fast running skrimishing loot tactics of the countryside
By the time you are the only big power left the whole of the region has no money left and you are paying guys through loot, you havent actually built legit institutions and state apparatus to "govern."
They were closer to taliban than anything I can think of in this modern world not due to religion or ideology but the tactics
Thats why this so called empire was more of a chimpout than something in the same league as the Mughals or even powers that came before Mughals
