Unexpected to say the least.
Good read though, mostly agree.
> My main gripe is that the files under /etc/rc.d/ are immutable scripts.
Are they though? A lot of, well at least old software, lacked configuration files, their command line flags and unit scripts were for all intensive purposes, their config files.
Whether this actually makes upgrade harder (the next point made), is kind of debatable no?
Arch does fine with pacsave and pacnew files.
Making changes or tracking changes to these files is going to be required regardless from a systems upgrade point of view - because people want control over their system units.
And for what its worth, I'd rather find out about a breaking update via pacsave/new than figure it out months later when my copied but now outdated and untracked unit starts failing.