You are not splitting a timer between 2 files you are splitting a service and a timer, not all services need a timer. I think that is point being glossed ove

You are not splitting a timer between 2 files you are splitting a service and a timer, not all services need a timer. I think that is point being glossed over services may be called by a target, a timer, or manually. or all 3 when the need arises. So for example if I have a process that I need to run on startup, every Friday, and sometimes adhoc I can create a single service file and do all 3, and know it is executed in the same way every time could not do that with cron or even older init systems