Poor use of an ORM (or pretty much any robust full-featured library) has its risks. I'm not sure how you provide features that AR includes without putting your

Poor use of an ORM (or pretty much any robust full-featured library) has its risks. I'm not sure how you provide features that AR includes without putting your memory at risk of overuse. Model.find(:all) is going to be problematic across the board, there will always be a risk when you start playing with things like including children (there's a great benefit as well). You need to know what you're doing with any ORM.