You don't have to install gnome, kde, wayland or systemd. You are just talking about your preferences masked as something that “had to be done”. I only had to fiddle with audio on the raspberry pi when connecting bluetooth. Everything works out of the box nowadays. If wayland was a good protocol, the user would not have to know about it.
I wasn't saying that anything had to be done, nor was I saying that each change was good or bad (except for the audio and Xfree86 to Xorg). My preferences really don't enter into it. I was saying that Linux systems do indeed change, and the idea of learn once and you're done is nonsense.