The systemd project is doing us a huge favor by integrating together kernel, udev, and services properly. Race conditions are revealed and fixed properly (sockets, dbus IPC). Processes are properly tracked (cgroups) and reliably logged (journald).
Systemd is going by correct first and then fast. Faster boot is not very important to me, my personal vision is *instant* boot, now that would be a game changer! Faster boot is an acceptable stepping stone.