Russ Allbery left over bureaucracy and systemd. It sounds like it's chocked full of people who want power and an excuse to patch downstream to create a cottage industry of quirks, busywork, and codependency.

I prefer real choice and light patches that try to upstream as much as possible, or workaround upstream obstinacy rather than create incompatible idiosyncrasies. One area that isn't well represented in barely a/no distro is init freedom neither married to nor completely divorced from the sprawling octopus.