Direct voting is a less valuable idea than proportional representation, but it is technically more representative of individual voters' desires.
It's hard to say if it would decentralize power more or less than an electoral college.
Certainly, the Founding Fathers of our Republic were against "democracy", but in favor of democratic elections as a limit to government centralization of power. Since this is within my first ten posts, I can't post a URL, which is butt stupid, but I can ask you to google search "RJ Rummel The Democratic Peace" In this free online book Rummel points out that Democratic elections are a soft check on most tyranny, but a hard check on the worst of tyranny (war and democide: mass murder by government).
I think that proportional representation with IRV is a better way to go.