My first experience of systemd was on Arch, I think when it was replacing trad init around fall 2012. I kept up with the technical gossip, if not the real low-level arguments (didn't know enough) but I liked the things it was sold on: It was neat, tidy, and seductively fast, and it was (in a desktop scenario) completely reliable.
It's nice to live in a technological cave, but at some point you have to come out.