I actually love systemd like 96% of the time. The only time I don't is when it just cannot do something, and then you need to layer the old Unix way on top of

I actually love systemd like 96% of the time. The only time I don't is when it just cannot do something, and then you need to layer the old Unix way on top of it using the wrong semantics, i.e., services that are actually complicated bash scripts which are used to do something for which systemd has specialised units, like an (auto)mount. Then it's all the pain of brittle Unix scripts, with misleading semantics, and an extra layer of abstraction and set of limitations to keep in your head. But no, I genuinely think that systemd is great these days. I do understand why people become irked by it becoming a dependency of programs which really should be able to function without it though. One thing that makes it difficult is how scattered between all the different manpages the documentation is. It took me quite a lot of time and frustration to build up a decent mental model of what everything is for, when it needn't have if (ironically) the docs were just written in a less Unixy way. But making my system feel more event-driven and less imperative has been a pleasure.