Aside from the binary logs, which are really not a great idea, systemd adds orders of magnitude more complexity to a system that really didn't need it. The init system could have been addressed without something like systemd. I'm old enough to remember and use Unix. Like a lot of IT guys my age, we all tend to think that adding complexity is wrong. This notion of one ring to rule them all mentality is really starting to take effect in IT. Unix-like operating systems are supposed to be non-complex. My example above, of OpenBSD, is true. Maintaining OpenBSD systems is trivial compared to similar Linux systems, and I maintain both. Sadly, I admin a series of CentOS PBX servers that are an absolute pain. A friend runs his on FreeBSD and has less than half the pain points I do. And we're running the same PBX software.
I believe in lowest common denominator everytime. Binary anything is bad when alternatives exist. Linux has given itself over to binary blobs in the name of being more attractive to corporate users. Device drivers under Linux are now almost all binary blobs. You will not see this in OpenBSD, for example. The BSD folk reverse engineer the drivers and write their own free drivers -- and they are usually far and away better afterwards.
Take the wireless chipset drivers for Ralink. The BSD guys took a 30,000 line driver and rewrote the entire thing in less than 1/3 of the code. That's just the whole attitude between Linux and BSD. Linux is a series of cobbled-together hacks on top of an ever-growing, ever-complex kernel (that really needs legacy crap removed). BSD, on the other hand, is engineered as a single OS with a small collection of pruned base programs. Big difference. If you've ever used BSD, you will know the joy of /etc/rc.conf vs the nightmare of Linux config files that live in myriad locations depending on the distro.
BSD handles all of this better than Linux. Text file. Easy. Linux has grown far too "complex". I like how OpenBSD adds modern touches yet keeps the OS free from binary blobs. systemd addresses some issues, but at the cost of complexity. I dislike binary blobs in my systems, hence, my servers run OpenBSD.
I was in IT security for many years and got out largely because of the sheer attitudes of many of the people I encountered. Some of them were genuinely very nice, very smart people, but these gentlemen were few and far between. Sadly.
I started off as an abuse investigator for a very large East Coast ISP, moved into firewalls, then penetration testing once I knew what I was doing. All along this path, the vast majority of guys I worked with, for, and around (on contracts) were sheer jerks of the highest order. Everyone seemed to be angry, upset, on edge. I can understand this. IT security--especially abuse investigations--necessitates seeing the seedy side of the Internet. Ditto IT security in general. You're not working for or with people who are "creatives". You're working for and with people whose sole job is to minimize threats and vulnerabilities.
The most stressful time was being a firewall engineer. Having to deal--on the fly--with impatient customers wanting a six-spoke VPN "right now!" and them being jerks about it was annoying.
I hated the calls that involved my placing a "tap" on some poor sod whose boss wanted an 8-hour tcpdump on him to see where he went when online. They wanted a gzipped log file placed on the server where they could SSH in and retrieve it.
I hated the double standards where executives were given static IP addresses on their machines and special rules created to allow them carte blanche access to the Internet at large--no filtering. They also avoided the proxy. These special executives were &^%#$@ and everyone knew it.
When you spend your life seeing nothing but evil, you take on a different view of life and the world around you. I saw this happening and I got out in favor of being a sysadmin. I'm much happier, and the IT security roles I do have are much smaller in scope and I know how to handle them quickly and quietly.
What bothers me about this device is the necessity to have a live Google account, which takes in everything I surf in real time. I have serious reservations about this.