One of the problems with systemd seems to be that it makes init scripts look simpler by spreading their complexity across multiple files all over the filesystem

One of the problems with systemd seems to be that it makes init scripts look simpler by spreading their complexity across multiple files all over the filesystem instead. The unit file systemd proponents were showing off as an example a few years back certainly looked simple compared to the init script it replaced... until you realise that its functionality had actually been split across several unit files and a bunch of shell scripts that they called. Look at this article and just count number of moving parts involved in getting NFS working with systemd too. Multiple service, target and socket unit files with the same name but subtly different behaviour, multi-hundred-line shell scripts in a directory most people won't even realise exists modifying some of them at runtime, ... In non-systemd init systems that'd all probably be one init script, and the fact that it was all in one place would sure make it look more complex.