First of all, no, systemd as in PID1 does not get logs back from journald. The systemctl command is using the sd-journal API to do that directly from the journ

First of all, no, systemd as in PID1 does not get logs back from journald. The systemctl command is using the sd-journal API to do that directly from the journal files. Secondly, I don't, I expect the recent logs portion of `systemctl status $unit` to be suppressed when journald isn't present. Note that journal-caused slowness of that very command is a common complaint aimed at journald contributing to people wanting to remove it!