> My guess is that you haven't actually had to deal with any large rails applications, > The abstractions Rails uses are fine for a relatively small app (up to 10 models). Beyond that is where the complexity mushrooms and the framework starts dragging down the project.

I've worked on several rails applications with a lot more models than that. Some with over 100 models. ActiveRecord has flaws, but I never felt it was a great impediment to getting things done.

A bigger issue (as you mentioned) is the large number of gems that are abandoned or sporadically maintained. I don't see that as a rails specific issue, but it seems to rear its head most often with gems that interact with rails.