I feel like you - so far I have usually used frameworks, but there are always aspects that make me unhappy (not even RoR satisfied me). Now I wonder if the recent article about IDEs also applies to frameworks: if you insist on using a framework, you probably won't be able to use the latest, coolest programming languages, because there are no frameworks for them yet.

I am not sure how much work it is to create one's own framework, but I suspect it is less than one might think. The hardest part to me seems serious OR mapping+caching.

Personally, I would probably go the same route as Groovy on Grails and build on top of Spring+Hibernate (so leverage existing frameworks, but in my own style).

Also, I don't know any programmers who became famous for using other people's frameworks.