Predictable, more-or-less identical systemd, with its stance on limiting eveything and being secure by default is more of a security risk than old-timey inits that were different for every distribution with init scripts made by different people with different abilities and customizations?

When I started my ops journey systemd wasn’t there, and it was far harder to make compatible software. Also if you are designing a system how exactly general use systems come into picture at all?

By every reasonable measure systemd is a win, it started to appear even in automotive industry, which is regulated as hell, by 2022 (when I left).