I think we're getting into semantics. I don't see the difference between "doing it in your framework" and "doing it in your controller" considering that my controller is part of my framework. I do a lot of rails and my controllers are mostly thin declarative setup of filters and such.

regarding validations, my models do decide if a from submission is valid, but the controller then decides what to do if the submission is invalid. I.e. serenader the form with some error messages. This is a good example of something that makes more sense to me in a controller.