Eh, journalctl isn't that bad on a spinning drive. The recent parts of the journal are usually in file cache, so if you use the limiters, like "journalctl --since today" or "journalctl -e"; or view in reverse order "journalctl -r" then things are speedy.

One thing I've seen systemd newbies do that I have to shake my head at is "journalctl | grep sshd" and that's entirely the wrong way to do it.