For the record, I don't think any piece of software is beyond criticism, including Kafka. That said, I frankly have no idea why this sub-thread has meandered into the topic of Kafka the software! :)

You could replace Kafka with Pulsar (or DistributedLog for that matter) in my comments above and it would stand.

Is using a distributed log as the WAL component of a event-sourcing or distributed database entirely a bad idea? I am of the opinion that it is a viable but sophisticated approach.

Peace out.