Any plans to dump systemd ?

There is a saying that any new technology that comes out before you turn
30 is the greatest thing ever, and any that comes out after you turn 30
is a pointless disruption and probably the end of civilization. Most of
your post gives me the impression you are over 30 (as am I) ;-P

>> Just to add to the content of these, I see systemd as solving a problem I don't have. <<

That doesn't mean it's solving a problem nobody has. Are you are a Linux
kernel developer?

>> I am just a regular guy <<

So... I'll assume not. In that case, it seems unlikely you would notice
the problems Systemd was created to solve.

>> We keep talking about the Chinese Government hacking into various Government bodies/companies but we don't look at ourselves and ask why this is possible. <<

Not sure which "we" you're referring to here. The hackers whose job it
is to fix security holes most certainly do ask, and although I'm not one
of them, I'll take a wild guess at why it's possible. From discussions
I've had with people who do programming for banks, one of the reasons is
old software not being refactored often enough. This results in chunks
of inefficient and unmaintained code living to a ripe old age inside
essential components (like OpenSSL), where they can easily be sold
bridges or convinced to hand out their internet banking passwords to
random callers. As long as it's done carefully, regular redesign
improves security, as well as efficiency (same output using fewer system
resources).

>> The Canadian Government also screwed up our pay roll system for Government employees, I don't remember hearing anything that went wrong with the old one. <<

Funny, we had exactly the same thing happen in Aotearoa (NZ). Management
of the payroll system was taken away from a database company with
decades of experience in payroll systems, and handed over to a foreign
HR company with no database experience at all. This was a political
screw-up, not a technical one.

>> What's wrong with lilo ? Are the problems so terminal that they can't be fixed? <<

I could be wrong, but I believe Lilo is a bootloader (like GRUB), not
part of the init system in the Linux kernel

>> Why not stick to the unix principal of doing one thing and doing it well. <<

Although I generally agree with the unix principle (when it comes to
back-end programs), it's a rule of thumb, not a law of nature. But it
turns out that the version of systemd the majority of distros have
adopted keeps to the unix principle anyway:

"thanks to a thorough collection of symlinks, systemd as finally
implemented provides the same collection of small, specialized
applications as Linux always has."

http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/Off-the-Beat-Bruce-Byfield-s-Blog/Learning-to-live-with-systemd

>> systemd looks buggy and to be an unnecessary extension of the core job it is designed to replace. <<

Oh, so you are a kernel developer. How many years have you spent writing
kernel code? I mean, you wouldn't just say something "looks buggy" if
you have no idea how to read the code, now would you?

>> BTW I am also a Gnome Shell refugee, I liked Linux more in the GTK 2 era. Trisquel did a nice job with gnome back when the classic fallback still seemed to suck on Debian. <<

While I agree that Trisquel's GUI is way better than any of the bloat
Ubuntu (or KDE distros) have put out over the past few years, this is a
UX (User Experience) issue. Totally different design principles apply.
For example, the unix principle doesn't apply to desktop application
GUIs, which work best when they do many things (although it does apply
to the back-end programs and libraries the buttons in that GUI point
to).

Thanks for writing. Hope that helps.

My concern is that Uruk may not get cirtified, it's Trisquel with a slightly different ui.

BLAG was a nice distribution. Not for masochists. I used it for some months as my main system, many years ago. It is now discontinued.