I think this observations was much more true of Rails 2.x and before than Rails 3 forward. People forget that "Rails 3" was actually Rails merging with Merb. A

I think this observations was much more true of Rails 2.x and before than Rails 3 forward. People forget that "Rails 3" was actually Rails merging with Merb. A lot of hard-coded inflexibility of Rails 2 had to be extracted out, and the framework became much more malleable as a result. When I hear people talk about being stuck to a certain path with Rails, I wonder what they are talking about. Then I think back to Rails 2 and think, "oh, right....". Rails still encourages a certain path by convention, but it is much easier to deconstruct than before.