ITIL is shoot-yourself painful, but it does have its place. Try managing the IT services for a multi-billion dollar overgrown corporation without at least some reference to ITIL and see where you end up.
This is why my question is addressed to the Hacker News community. How do hackers see ITIL? What about startups? What about small companies? Hackers aren't usually associated with IT services bureaucracies for sclerotic multi-billion dollar corporations. Do any of them get excited by "service as a service" or even, "'service as a service' as a service"?
"Are you strategically servicing that equipment?" No, I'm fixing it motherfucker.