This would be a comment with two parts. First one will be counterarguments, second will be a generalized response. Please bear.

Part One:

---------

> systemd-resolved is not enabled by default in Debian and many distributions, and it is not needed in any way by systemd. If you don't like it, don't use it!

It's not possible to ask systemd about which parts are enabled and up to which extent. It always adds a discovery phase before starting to make changes in a system. If you don't do this discovery, you're probably in a wrestling party with systemd. If you do this discovery, it costs you time. Systemd SHALL provide a way to see how much of its enabled up to what extent.

Network Manager got this right. If there's a distribution native configuration file for an interface, Network Manager ducks out and leaves system to its own. If systemd finds an equivalent service running both in its own ecosystem and from another package, it either overrides it or collides head-on with it, so either systemd equivalent works, or nothing works as expected. Neat(!).

> Before systemd, at least on Debian, for a few years the recommended way was NOT calling `/etc/init.d/something`, but instead `service apache restart`.

That'd be RedHat family of distributions. Debian doesn't have service command out of the box. Using both for over a decade, RH uses service, Debian uses /etc/init.d

> Thanks to systemd, most linux installs now use `systemctl restart service1 service2`. Note that you can now act on multiple services at the same time. You can use this feature as a mnemonic

There was a thousand ways to do that before systemd, systemd added yet another way. It's not bad, but it was not novel in any way.

> In many cases, init.d scripts told you nothing when they failed. Each service has its own procedure. Nowdays you can always see what happened with the command systemctl prints on failure.

systemd reports the failure in the lines of "service failed to start. go look to the logs. I also probably intercepted them, so journalctl may work".

Any good init script reports the error as "I cannot find my run file and/or process, please go get the logs. Something is probably borked". It's more/less the same thing. Better reporting in systemd requires systemd targeted service files, which are not mandatory, or most practical all the time.

Part 2:

-------

Whenever something comes up about systemd, this summarized conversation comes to life:

U1: We were happy before systemd. It broke too many things, it also tried to hijack everything. Now everything is different.
U2: *defend systemd in various and countless ways*
U3/U1: You're wrong.
*A flame war ensues for some time*

This is neither productive, nor beneficiary to anyone. I'm using this thing called linux for more that 15 years. It's nearing 20. I've used init.d, mudur, upstart, systemd, etc. They all have advantages and disadvantages

However, neither of these systems have this fierce defendant army of systemd. To be brutally honest, systemd has a lot of advantages, makes many things more practical, and faster in many ways.

OTOH, systemd is not radically fast. It's faster, but not blindingly. It's practical, but not always. It's hijacking of services makes some stuff very backwards. Replacement of NTP and resolved makes things hard to manage. Default binary logs makes some admins and external systems go blind.

I'm not against progress or systemd in general, but please be a little more accommodating for neutral and negative comments about systemd. Not all the commenters are bone headed caveman who love their flint stones and reject lighters with all their life!