It seems clear that the systemd devs are not playing well with others, though perhaps I am wrong about that ... Why make such a change instead of just making i

It seems clear that the systemd devs are not playing well with others, though perhaps I am wrong about that ... Why make such a change instead of just making it optional? What would be the impact in such a case? Did they announce it well in advance and document this? If not, then the question that springs to mind is "I don't want these guys in charge of helping me administer my systems." Imagine updating via apt or yum, and having a bunch of important processes killed with no warning when you log out for the day.