Quote: "Yes, we do want them, because we want enough users of Gnome
here so we can tell the Gnome project to make systemd conditional in
their source tree, and to accept the patches we (and others) will send
upstream."

Pushing systemd down Gnome users' throats is part of their marketing
strategy. How are you going to convince the Gnome developers not to
use anything to that helps them attain their goals? Is it enough to
state the already stated about systemd and its adoption? I am afraid
the developers are too enthusiastic about systemd's new ways to accept
the olden ways.