I don't support a switch to systemd at this time (I use Debian, and I'd be happy to live with pretty much any other init system for at least one more release - the obvious choice would be to just stick to systemV init, and see what systemd looks like in a year or so. Down side is that if the distro were to move (for supporting all those people that want Gnome for some reason ;-) -- then we loose out on a year or two of testing systemd).
Anyway:
> Most of the problems systemd is trying to "solve" does not exist. At least not BSD, AIX, Solaris, you name it.
Don't forget that (open) Solaris revamped the init system, not just the disk/filesystem-system. I think there are arguments to be made for integrated systems like the zones/zfs/SMF.
I don't think systemd is a reasonable way to go about it, and I certainly don't think it is a good fit for "Linux in general". My impression is: Systemd is too big -- will fail.
Wasn't it Gnome that at one time tried to mimic the windows registry for settings (because binary data on disk: really fast, lol) -- only to go back to ini-style files? (I might be misremembering that one).
Different designs are fine (see: eg plan9) -- but moving away from fundamental design principles (everything is a (text) file) effectively means abandoning the old system, making a new system.
If systemd was a bit more upfront about "making a new operating system sharing some code with Linux kernel and traditional userland" - rather than trying to sell systemd as "more of the same, just better" -- maybe they'd meet with more positive reception. That a new system is unstable is fine -- just don't expect people to use your new crap in production.