I have no hate for Gentoo but Slackware works just fine and always had the best sysvinit set up around. If Pat ever gives it up Gentoo (or a derivative) would likely be my only option before jumping to a *BSD. 

 I was bummed to see Dylan Araps disappear, and abandon the KISS Linux project.  That, or something like it, is the route I would go if I were doing Linux again.