I'm sorry, but I think the two of you are mixing method (implementation) with
intent (architecture). Personally, I don't much care whether you can use
ed, vi, emacs, vmr (for those old RSX11 types out there), or twist the
heads off of pigeons kept in a cage by the server, in order to establish
in a unified and rational fashion persistent system properties, and further,
properties that can be changed without rebooting the system.

It's this thing that end users probably care about- not whether the
tool to do the job has this bogus little daemon stamped on the metal
case, no?