Forking a distribution will help by giving an alternative, but it's not as easy as just saying it. Maintaining a distribution is a massive effort that takes a lot of work. Building a team of people with enough time to make that happen isn't something you do overnight. The fact that one hasn't magically appeared since this started has more to do with that than anything else. (Followed closely by people generally waiting to see how this shakes out before they pull the trigger.)
Second - while it will provide an alternative that helps frame the debate, this is not a minor undertaking. With every other distribution caving maintaining a distribution that does not use Systemd will require a lot of work to keep all of the software out there working properly with whatever alternative init system it chooses to use.
This alternative distro is also going to have to deal with how to solve the init problem. We had some good options in play but I don't believe we'd found the best answer to the problem yet when Lennart came bowling through like a bull in a china shop. So any distribution effort is going to have to take on the role of choosing the best of breed alternative and make the effort to ensure it continues to develop and improve.
Most being: this is not the issue the loudest voices say it is.