That "occasional weird problem" is because systemd is not designed to be used with other software. While you technically still have the choice to roll your own non-systemd initramfs, it will be an uphill battle.
That's not true, systemd has an explicitly documented and supported initrd interface: https://systemd.io/INITRD_INTERFACE/
It's actually really easy, there's rarely a reason for the initrd to be more complex than a single 50-line busybox script on an embedded device with built-in drivers.
Dracut is used both in Void Linux and on Alpine without systemd and with busybox.
It even runs continuous integration with musl based containers.
It has an init:
$ /home/busybox-1.35 init --help
BusyBox v1.35.0 (2022-01-17 19:57:02 CET) multi-call binary.
Usage: init
Init is the first process started during boot. It never exits.
It (re)spawns children according to /etc/inittab.
Signals:
HUP: reload /etc/inittab
TSTP: stop respawning until CONT
QUIT: re-exec another init
USR1/TERM/USR2/INT: run halt/reboot/poweroff/Ctrl-Alt-Del script