I was with you until the last paragraph. Just about every init system is different from historical init systems. Do you really think OpenRC or runit or any of the other init systems people are using have any similarity to SysV init? I think you're attacking a strawman in the last paragraph. (Edit: Except Slackware users. Slackware still does init the way it's traditionally been done, but I can't think of anyone else who does)