It would have been fine if it wasn't forced. "We are the audio stack everyone should use" but when it doesn't work then it's an ALSA bug and alsa ppl should take the blame (even when it works fine with full alsa, like my audio card). And it was designed more like a networking stack then an audio stack.
Sure it was necessary at the time (so that hdmi, and later bluetooth, would work transparently), but the "i know best" attitude hurt its execution.
SystemD on the other hand brought nothing of value. Did way more harm then good.