I'd argue that one of the biggest things that made sysvinit so ugly was that distro maintainers didn't enforce any type of startup script hygiene. Take a look at BSD-style init scripts some time. They're beautiful in their simplicity and readability. They source a common set of functions, have well-defined variables to control execution, and end up with a length about that of systemd units, without sacrificing the power of shell scripting. Systemd threw the baby out with the bathwater, and just makes diagnosing boot problems all that more difficult when you have to start tracing through magic symlinks.