The same position?
Morrissey's music at 53 vs. Bowie's at 53...Morrissey wins hands down. Bowie's career is hinged on what basically amounted to an early 70s gimmick that shocked mom and dad, with a little genuine greatness peppered in...but not much. Whereas on the whole, Morrissey's career and continuity of integrity have been much more consistent. So I feel that no, they are not in comparable situations. Bowie is very lucky, or should feel lucky, to have a pupil in Morrissey.
The difference between Morrissey and Bowie is that Bowie knew when it was time to give the gimmick up and evolve...
One issue I noticed is that you seem to be trying to correlate gimmickry with music style changes. Ziggy Stardust, without a doubt, was a gimmick...but Bowie's forays into rock, glam rock, pop, folk, jazz, swing, and electronic weren't. Which is something Morrissey could learn from instead of rehashing the same album for over a decade. Bowie was critically and commercially successful before and after Ziggy Stardust...if anything, he was more successful with the 'Let's Dance' album than any of his 70s output. It's called staying relevant and evolving with the times and the music...you can't make music that all sounds the same indefinitely...or then you would be Morrissey.
Bowie was and is successful because he's always had strong material to back him up...Morrissey doesn't. Which is why one has a new album coming out while the other doesn't. So much for his consistence and integrity, huh?
I think Morrissey fans tend to give him a sense of importance in the music business that he doesn't actually have and never really has had. He's never really been a "successful artist". The most total units he's shipped in his entire career is approx 400,000 for 'Quarry'! That is it! It is really a pathetic amount...which is why all Morrissey ever manages to get is a high charting position for the first week of sales, because he already exhausts nearly his entire fanbase (what is left of it) in that 7 day period. Covering his songs, doing duets, being his opening act, having his former guitarists and producers produce his albums, taking on an opening act that did a duet with Bowie on one of her albums - Morrissey wishes he could be a Bowie pupil! It is almost embarrassing, really...however, not quite as embarrassing as Morrissey's gimmick of flowers in the pocket, hearing aids, ugly glasses, Oscar Wilde books, 'woe is me, nobody loves me' attitude, I don't have sex-I do have sex-I'm back to not having sex-nonsense, bitching in the press for attention about anything and everything. I could say more, but you get the general idea...