Presumably they're talking about systemd as a whole, not just the tiny subset of systemd that is used as init system or service manager. I don't think I've see

Presumably they're talking about systemd as a whole, not just the tiny subset of systemd that is used as init system or service manager. I don't think I've seen anyone complain about systemd's init system or service manager; it's always about the remaining 90% of systemd's scope and its tight coupling between all its parts (the tight coupling being the main problem).