> The lines of code relevant to only the init are in src/core, so your comparison would probably only make sense if you compared that folder

  $ wc `find src/core \( -name \*.c -o -name \*.h \) -print`
  [...]
      81604  249802 3001043 total

So 81,604 lines for src/core vs 17,263 for OpenRC. So why does systemd need 677,446 lines of C code in its entire tree if src/core is 81,604 lines?

I suppose the answer is that IBM/Red Hat make money shipping systems that they and they alone have the expertise to support and fix. Making systemd's tree over 600k lines so that Red Hat employee Lennart is pretty much the only human being alive who understands it all is conducive to that goal.