I specifically pointed out Debian instead of Fedora because of my discomfort with what happened to CentOS, even though Fedora comes with more out-of-the-box for desktop-users/gamers.
Linux has already switched to systemd, whether you like it or not. 99.9% of new users will only ever learn systemd, if they even learn what an init system is at all.
Debian switched to systemd in 2013, and IBM was not involved with systemd before 2019. Poettering works for Microsoft, not IBM.
The changes to init were necessary. The init scripts were legacy bloat, even in 2013. Furthermore, the work from the systemd project on creating separate daemons for other parts of the OS have brought a lot of new features and innovation to Linux.
Haven't tried it myself, but it looks interesting. I figure that GNOME and KDE are probably more comfortable than XFCE for general users and gamers, respectively.