Yeah, I generally advocate for find_by_sql and select_all, but think about what that actually does. It instantiates a bunch of ActiveRecord objects that have to be of a particular model (what if the query joins tables together and returns a result set that doesn't actually neatly contain the intended columns of a given model? I can't even use ActiveRecord::Base.find_by_sql, I have to choose an actual ActiveRecord model
arbitrarily), has the columns of the result set dynamically bound to it as methods during runtime (slow), also has the methods of the model itself bound to it, which may have unexpected behavior based on the query (especially if we just choose an arbitrary model), and in exchange we get to treat the result set as an array of structs rather than an array of hashes (which admittedly has its performance advantages, but not if the fields have to be dynamically bound to each object as methods!).
Oh, and if you're writing an INSERT statement you have to use connection.execute after all. Have fun!