What you've just mentioned here is what scares me most about systemd. Not its tight coupling, not its bugs, not its philosophy - all of these things are arguable and in most cases fixable.
The project being run by people who hold unreasonable and downright odious views who act like, frankly, utter asshats, is a much more serious problem.
The Kay/Linus debacle is something you can expect to see more of from these fine folks going forward. Mark my words. Ask yourself if you want software developed this way running your OS.
I am not sure if you're referring to this, but I have seen so many instances where an individual joins a community and then systematically tears it apart by calmly and coolly promoting ideas that ~51% kind of like and ~49% absolutely hate, through a combination of personality cult and back-room coalition building. I have seen this happen in forums, IRC channels, RPG groups, businesses. It is a particularly insidious type of toxic personality because you can't fix the problem by excising them without alienating and losing a large chunk of your community.
Ted Lemon (the author and maintainer of ISC DHCP from its inception to 2003 [0]) asks for the location of the project's source repo. Sievers replies with a LMGTFY link that doesn't even answer Lemon's question. Lemon politely criticizes Sievers for his rude and unhelpful answer. Sievers fails to even apologize.[1]
Both Sievers and Poettering have pretty serious attitude issues. It's one thing to lambast a peer who frequently fails to meet the potential that they've demonstrated in the past. It's entirely another thing to try to score social points with your callous indifference and blinkered bullheadedness.
[0] https://www.isc.org/downloads/dhcp/
[1] Check the first few comments of: https://plus.google.com/+TomGundersen/posts/eztZWbwmxM8