[warrenm]

I have to think ... you don't actually know what you're talking about

I fought against systemd for a while, too

I was wrong

The "if it ain't broke, why fix it" approach with 'classic' init scripts led to a far far messier place than systemd

My only complaint about systemd is that I haven't found a way to push the journal to text simply ...and that's most likely my poor google-fu or not having enough to time to fully dive into it, rather than "systemd's journal sucks"

Systemd does use "text files or symlinks for configuration"

It's very well designed - though you may happen to have a preference for a different architecture (...but the one you described is pretty much systemd, my friend :))