In my experience as someone who has worked with dozens of new Ruby developers, I think the ability to create expressive DSLs was a significant net positive. It

In my experience as someone who has worked with dozens of new Ruby developers, I think the ability to create expressive DSLs was a significant net positive. It was much more likely to be a source of excitement than something that turned newcomers off. I don't think DSLs are or were a problem for Ruby (nor do I think they count as "abusing syntax").