Because it's a modular set of tools. There's systemd-journald, systemd-udevd, systemd-logind, systemd-readahead and various other components like systemd-fsck, systemd-localed, systemd-hostnamed, systemd-timedated among other things. Each do one thing and one thing well. Only the core part of systemd is runs at PID1 and the others behave and are launched like every other service or a tool.
upstart isn't nearly as bad/old as sysvinit (upstart was created in 2006 and is still decently modern, but its development isn't very active these days and seems to be in "maintenance mode"). My guess is that if they switch to systemd, it won't be until after the next lts release. Nothing wrong with them staying with upstart for now, but I do think they will need to switch in the future.
afiak upstart also depends on PID1....
https://bugs.launchpad.net/upstart/+bug/160150
Last edited by bwat47; 11-16-2012 at 08:37 AM.
Several large distros have already switched to systemd, and I've used a few of them. I've never had any reliability issues with systemd, and these distros haven't had any major reliability issues with it. This screams of FUD. If you dislike some technical aspects of systemd, fine, but no need to spread silly fud like "its proven to be unreliable".
Distros that have switched to systemd just off the top of my head: Fedora, Opensuse, Mageia, Mandriva, Arch, Frugalware.