I understand the point you are making. The only problem with picking up a relatively less mature/complete framework is that I intend to use it in production.
Since I am starting up as a novice, I cannot afford to sacrifice maturity for the high of being on the edge. I realize there's benefit for me in being on the edge as you mentioned( and I would love to play with the newest toy), but in my case, I unfortunately can't do that. Thanks for stopping by! :-)
I'm pretty happy about my choice to be on the edge as when it got mainstream, I was already very proficient with it. So, in that sense, I think I'd still suggest you to pick a more edgy framework.. say Node with Angular (or ember).