About the Devuan excision

Not quite. systemd also has special treatment of mount units for shutdown and for containers. It's a minor thing, true, but it also reinforces my point. There are too many moving pieces in systemd that can have unexpected side-effects.

I'm not a systemd hater, and I absolutely LOVE not having to cargo-cult /etc/init.d scripts.

But I'm not at all positive about systemd's ability to carry out its stated goal: building a coherent low-level infrastructure layer. The same pattern keeps repeating again and again: systemd adds some component in an MVP fashion and then gives up on making it fit with the rest of the system before moving on to the next shiny thing. And/or takes shortcuts that shouldn't be taken.