I don't believe it was dependent on homed (there's no mention of that being the case).
It's caused in v256 by trying to remove temporary files with a tool called "systemd-tmpfiles" which is described as "systemd-tmpfiles, systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service, systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service, systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service, systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer - Creates, deletes and cleans up volatile and temporary files and directories"
If a user decided to use --purge to clean up those files, but doesn't know that this tool also manages the /home directory by default, that's their fault for not reading the entire man page and every config file it mentions to discover this. (Of course, there was no mention of it managing /home in the man page, and even after the issue was raised and closed it still doesn't explicitly mention that but dances around with things like "Historically, it was designed to manage volatile and temporary files, as the name suggests, but it provides generic file management functionality and can be used to manage any kind of files".)
There was also another bug in an earlier release, if using systemd-tmpfiles in the intended way, which destroys the entire root partition, because the incompetent programmers allowed "/path/.*" to not just match dotfiles, but also match "/path/.."
In both cases, there wasn't just the bug, there was a shitty reaction, claiming there's no issue and blaming the person raising the issue, rather than just shutting up and fixing it.
> Call me insane but, I have this hunch Peter is not your average Linux user.
*shrug* I try to pay at least superficial attention to what major parts of my system are doing - not entirely through choice but because it seems to be the only way to keep it being somewhat my system.
Three decades ago paying attention to what things do wouldn't have been atypical amongst people using Linux systems?