Memes

Marxism has never been about equality of outcome, Marx himself opposed "equalitarians" in his time. Socialism as it exists in real life recognizes the difference between more diffucult, dangerous, risky, etc labor, and often came with higher pay or reduced working hours. The disparity in socialist countries has always been far less than in capitalist countries, even countries that are still socialist but maintain markets at this stage in development like the PRC and Vietnam.

I don't like the way OP is framing it, though. Centralization gives connotations of removing bottom-up input, which is why I like the term collectivization more. Having all of production under the collective banner of the whole society, and resolving the obstacles towards such a society, is the main process of advancing socialism towards communism. This means centralization in that it reduces private and cooperative ownership to nothing, but it also retains room for local sovereignty and input that ladders upwards.