2 things;

1) Init scripts varied by implementation very much, I have managed to successfully debug, make, read and otherwise modify/parse init scripts from basically every _major_ distro including OpenBSD and FreeBSD.

I am not particularly intelligent, so if I can do it, you can.

2) There is no reason to assume we go back to bash scripts per-se, there is a huge middle ground between a huge C program which execve()'s programs and watches them live, parses their output, logs it, enables socket activation, keeps an in memory DAG that it determines randomly on boot.... and bash scripts.

Re 2... there is a lot of middle ground there, but can that middle ground tackle all of the problems systemd is trying to solve without resorting to what they've resorted to?

From the original problem statement[0]? Yeah I think so, Runit solves all of those issues.

[0]: http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html