Poettering gets shit on a lot. While his software does often have problems, he is really well-intentioned and working on really hard things that really do need fixing. New software simply has bugs and problems, and while the transition period can be rough, I think things will be really improved when we break through to the other side.
People don't hate systemd because it has bugs. People hate it because it's clear that it thinks it owns your system and that its manifest destiny is to contain all software that exists.