Yeah, well, if it's to go from unit files to Guile code, that's not what I'd consider an improvement. Having configuration files for use cases where the requirements are simple enough is nice.
Of course, when they're not, you end up with an abomination like MSBuild, but that's not the case here.
True, but if that is the case you won't be running dmd in the first place. And automated conversion/runtime translation will be a possibility even with different service managers, e.g. systemXVI.
I'm not really convinced by the second, in that I believe that nothing in the article proves that service management is something too complex to be done via configuration files.
Of course, when they're not, you end up with an abomination like MSBuild, but that's not the case here.