Not a "bloated, monolithic system"?

> And you're not living in the real world. Your shell is already going to be audited, or an upstream audit is taking place if it matters.

So why is systemd being held to a different standard?

> It boggles my mind that there are administrators out there that would consider some other solution as simpler. Why are people so scared of procedural programming using a *nix shell?

Shell is used for the same reason that folks use a screwdriver as a chisel or a punch. Sure it's convenient, and often gets the job done, but there's a much higher chance of unintended, and often quite painful, consequences.