That seems to describe systemd extremely well. Lots of little tools like networkd, homed, journald... that do one thing, do it well and work together. And using text+time stamps.

AFAIK the systemd parts don't have well-defined interfaces. At least I've never seen any independent replacement of any of those small parts, as opposed to replacement of whole systemd.

Do you browse the web like `curl | render-http`? UNIX philosophy is not a law. For complex problem domains separating it into multiple parts is not always possible and only makes the whole thing more complex. System init is quite a complex problem domain.

I browse the web using Firefox, i.e., extendable browser with a huge number of plugins. Unix philosophy is not a low. It's a rule helping to make computing understandable, robust and extendable.

I don’t see why something that is derived from UNIX has to have to the UNIX philosophy.

Here’s a thought I haven’t evaluated fully: can the same thing be said about the Linux kernel?

At the end of the day I think some of the major points of criticisms of systemd (moving fast and breaking things for example) are valid, however I still see it as a net gain. Fortunately there are distros like Devuan, OpenWRT and Alpine for those who want something different.