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It seems that there would be a center of the universe. It seems that the center of the universe would be the exact spot the Big Bang happened.
Contrary to reason, the big bang and the resultant universe it allegedly resulted in cannot be permitted to have a center.
The "Copernican Principle" is assumed. Despite its name, it cannot be attributed to Copernicus. Neither is there any evidence to support it, at least according to Stephen Hawking. For purposes of this light discussion, I'll take the hit for "appeal to authority". But I give you my word as well: there ain't no evidence. That's why it's an assumption rather than a conclusion.
Worse still, if the universe has a center, all observations are consistent with Earth being at or close to it. Furthermore, if you assign reverse vectors to the visible matter in order to see where everything came from... well, that just makes them howl. As I said, reason has been dispensed with in cosmology.
Only the oldest versions of the big bang considered a physical explosion. These are the versions perpetuated in schoolbooks and pop science to keep the actual current big bang safe from being laughed out of the schoolhouse by the students. As silly as those versions were/are, they ain't nothin' compared to the real deal.
All that being said, your analogy is fairly accurate. Since Einstein's day they've been trying to come up with a fudge factor that will allow gravity to increase (or in some versions actually reverse) at long distances and hold things together, while still matching observations closely enough for them to fudge the observations to comply.
Actually, they've mostly given up on finding one; but never underestimate the diehards.
Inertia favors your analogy, and gravity can't prevent this. In order to exert more gravity, what do you need? More mass! More mass = more inertia, and by all mainstream accounts they don't have nearly enough mass to slow things down even if you throw in dark matter.
But don't get sidetracked by dark matter. It's primary function is to hold galaxies together. There ain't enough visible mass and the velocities are just crazy - well not crazy, God knew what He was doing. Without dark matter, galaxies fly apart in a few thousand years. So there has to be dark matter, because the galaxies haven't flown apart in billions of imaginary years.
I won't tax you with what I know of the dark energy fantasy at this time. Like the rest, it's funny but at the same time very sad business. They've been into blind faith for quite some time now.
But anyhow, to stop your analogy from being on target, they'd have to devise something that counteracts inertia and is capable of preventing the universe from flying apart. The mainstream bin's empty, so expect trash that's either 50 years out-of-date, or straight out of a sci-fi novel. Or invented ad hoc, can't forget that category.
Ah, if only there were drag in empty space... you might get to refine your analogy. But once something reaches escape velocity in a vacuum, there's no turning back without some means of thrust. If there had been a big bang, everything would have to have been exceeding this velocity from the very start. This applies no matter how many loopy extra imaginary dimensions are added.
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