Out of curiosity how is life without systemd better? What does it taste like?

It’s a matter of ideology.

This being said I think for you installing “official” apps via flatpak might be the best compromise. You gets apps that don’t need tinkering with and “just work” while those apps are isolated from the rest of your system via flatpak isolation.

If you are going into a period low fiddle time this might be your best bet ^