Im sorry but you make it sound like everybody that does rails is a perfect programmer. Rails itself has changed over the years and if you look at an app from years ago im quite sure it will be very different then a current rails app. So again this is just not an appropriate comparison.

I don't think they are perfect programmers. Heck, I use several languages and frameworks, whatever is right for the project. Knowing a language isn't a perfect programmer (we all know that). And to your point, that was the comparison I would make. Node is young so there is a lack of experience with it.

npm is vastly better than the gem package manager imo, making using modules infinitely easier. Furthermore, node modules (the good ones) do one thing and do it right. What I like about node is they give you the core without which you can't live, and you add the layers you want. With RoR you get a huge onion and need to peel a bunch of layers and add others if you want to do things right. I didn't say node was for beginners though. But say for a programmer with a good theoretical background but no web development experience, node is much more appealing and usable.