Another daemon for managing control groups

> the result of that will be that there will *never* be a viable replacement for it, and the more functions that systemd assimilates over time, the less likely it will be that any replacement ever appears.

That's called "vendor lock-in". It's almost everywhere undesired except by the systemd folks. Clean interfaces enabling change of components seem to be only wanted by backwoodsman who can't find the ONE TRUE way to enlightenment.

One of the greatest advantages of Linux is the freedom from vendor lock-in. I value my freedom to tinker far above a few seconds on every (seldom) boot, so unless systemd can limit itself to a replacement of init instead of being an all-embracing tentacle-monster it's banned from my systems.

If it's true that now gnome requires systemd it's also unfeasible.