[lmm]

> It is only practical to run one system initialisation daemon on one system image at a time

Sure, just as it's only possible to run one desktop environment at a time. But just as it's good form to write programs that will run correctly under any desktop environment (by keeping everything loosely coupled and ensuring any interfaces are stable and documented), it's good form to write programs that will run under any initialisation daemon. I don't mind systemd being what gets installed by default. I mind very much when systemd is the only option because other components have been encouraged to use systemd-only interfaces. (and realistically that's the only reason systemd "won" - many of the competing options were much nicer technically, but that doesn't matter when gnome requires you to be running systemd).

> When tight coupling is done by the BSDs, it is considered a good thing

I wouldn't say that. Tight coupling in and of itself is always a negative. If there's clear value gained (e.g. useful features) then that might be enough to outweigh the negative.