> There's a third, rather small community: the distro-makers, who nearly to a one are—if not in love—at least hold systemd in high regard.

I'm a distro-maker (Exherbo) and while we provide the option for systemd I wouldn't say anyone is exactly thrilled by it. Users use a variety of init systems including handrolled ones, and that choice is the users'. But we recognize it as the sensible current default and is too much effort to work against the grain here.