What I am lamenting is not that it's a collection of daemons, but that the API you mention quite clearly has grown with whatever people needed at any given time.
Like... the distinction between unit, job and processes. In principle, a unit should result in a running process if I schedule a job to start it. But cancelling that job doesn't necessarily abort the process if the job is underway.
The "not necessarily" part is worrying, suggesting there are hidden...