And my understanding is that Debian would be quite happy to have those customisations too -- maybe with a little more upfront effort, as they have to coexist wi

And my understanding is that Debian would be quite happy to have those customisations too -- maybe with a little more upfront effort, as they have to coexist with systemd support. But with less ongoing effort, as the code is at least present to be able to tell if a change will break it. Ultimately though it's entirely up to the developers where they put their effort. If folk prefer to work on a fork, they're entitled to do that. And it is a bit refreshing to see people putting at least some effort into not-systemd, rather than complaining about being "forced" to use it.