If there's one thing that's good about SystemD, it's that it may help bring some *shock* *horror* standardization to the Linux ecosystem. It should do away with binary logfiles in favor of human readable ones though.
If GNU/Linux wants to succeed as a desktop OS, standardization is something that will need to be taken seriously by the major vendors. Ubuntu-based distros introduce a good degree of standardization, though they could do a bit better, especially with keeping things consistent through the different versions given all the outdated documentation that's available for different aspects of it. Of course, they could fix that with a well maintained wiki documenting EVERYTHING there is to know about Ubuntu and its derived distros.
Another thing I'd like to see is better PPA support for Debian and its derived distros, possibly through some optional Ubuntu compatibility libraries. Ubuntu is based on Debian, but it has enough differences that it can sometimes be difficult to get certain software working on Debian that would be able to run fine on Ubuntu. I'd actually prefer to be running a purer Debian-derived distro than one derived from Ubuntu, as Ubuntu adds all sorts of bloat and other crap, but Ubuntu just happens to have better software and community support, so that's why I use it. Well, actually instead of plain Ubuntu, I run Xubuntu, a lighter fork with a better UI.