I do agree that systemd could use some competition, but until someone builds one, we're going to be dealing with some systemd defaults. Canonical's attempts seem to have been most complete, but outrage at change and different ideas have shut down most of Canonical's attempts to improve the situation.

It's far from janky, at least compared to what else is out there for Linux. If you're not writing systemd service files, you're almost surely back to writing unpredictable 80s style scripting jank.