I really hate the "we had it better before ${X} technology replaced ${Y}"; it almost never works in the Linux landscape.
It's most likely a one liner to fix the issue you're having, and if it isn't, then you can replace the problematic part of your system with whatever suites you.
You don't like Flatpaks? remove all of them and use packages from your distro's repos. Don't like GNU-utils? use Busybox. Don't like systemd? use Artix, Gentoo, or rip systemd out of your OS like a real man.