I implemented a registry once, where plugins in an app could store data. It was kind of horrific. Text files are great for config because you can version them

I implemented a registry once, where plugins in an app could store data. It was kind of horrific. Text files are great for config because you can version them and they tend to be somewhat self documenting. And with no registry you can use very useful patterns like one file per object. One of Linux's nastiest things, that is mostly fixed now, was things like hosts files and fstab, individual files responsible for multiple objects that are likely to be "owned" by different packages. Now most things have a config.d folder or something so you can use multiple files. Registries take away the ability to represent things using the file hierarchy and manipulate it with common tools.