Huh? What does systemd have to do with UX? If you want a bare bones Linux GUI, there are plenty of options, e.g. i3, which are completely independent of your preferred process 1.
I don't particularly mind it myself, but I get where some power users would get irked by it. This article does a decent job of explaining why; https://www.infoworld.com/article/2251761/linux-why-do-peopl...