> However, the systemd journal raw format is binary data and would much rather a plain text log

Yeah, I also wish that at least was an option, would make some things easier.

Also wished the remote log sending was easier, not sure if it's just me but was a huge hassle to setup properly, and really hard to properly validate it works as expected in all cases. Finally got it working, but it isn't as easy as the other parts of systemd/journald.