Because of the ubiquity, nay, monopoly of systemd I always assumed it was miles ahead of other init systems. Nope. I’ve been using a non-systemd environment for a while and must say I’m surprised by how little breaks, i.e., next to nothing. Moreover, boot and shutdown times are faster, and more of that good stuff. I suggest trying it out.
Artix debloated KDE Plasma excellently. Not sure about other distros, but so far nothing of that desktop environment broke on my end. Gnome I’m not touching with a ten foot pole, regardless of init system.