This is exactly how I feel as a developer. And I like that this is stated it so clearly - that Rails isn't for beginners anymore.
The point about ActiveSupport is so well put because it's something I cover on day one of my training, where we start with Ruby and move into ActiveSupport, and then Rails.
I've been quite vocal about the fact that Rails is harder to teach than it was in the past. But I don't think Rails needs to change or slow down. I just wanted to see some saner defaults that don't kitchen-sink it up.
I don't advocate making Rails slow down. Far from it. I advocate making Rails a little less of a pain for someone getting started. A default Rails application in 3.1 includes a lot of stuff that a beginner doesn't need but experts might appreciate, but how many experts are creating new Rails apps all the time? And if they are, how many use "rails new" instead of their own custom template? I know I do, because I use HAML and RSpec and configuring that myself takes too much time. I guess I feel like 'rails new', which is already driven by a template, could tone its default options.
My question for the HN crowd is, how many non-newbie Rails devs are creating new Rails projects all the time, using the defaults like test::unit, ERb, etc.?