Debian still having trouble with merged /usr

Article note: It took me a while to realize that the whole "Merged /usr" thing has always essentially been "We're moving what used to go in / (at least /bin and /sbin) into an initrd or initramfs image." The useful old "boot from a small static / then mount a (possibly shared) /usr from elsewhere" cases are now... the only option even if everything is actually on one device/volume. I'm, a decade later, mostly sold on the idea that having (almost) all the package-manger-owned parts in /usr is a reasonable way to do things, but it still has some of that "add an extra layer of abstraction which adds some complexity to hide complexity" stink about it.