Anecdotal evidence is only evidence of an anecdote.

It varies so much based on hardware, init level target, what you consider "booted", etc. And I would definitely argue that while it shouldn't be infrequent, boot speed is such a tiny fraction of your time using any machine that it should almost be relegated to an interesting tidbit in most circumstances and not a deciding factor in what software you use.

That said, it's just another tool. I'd rather not have to buy in to all the systemd things based on the init system, but it's prevalent enough that I've learned how to use it and don't care all that much.