I create probably at least 3-4 apps a month and I use RailsWizard to do it because my needs often vary quite a bit (I almost always use RSpec, but ActiveRecord vs. MongoDB+MongoMapper, needing Redis, etc. change for each app). I don't think the defaults have really gotten that out of hand, and the only one that really affects newbies is Coffeescript (since you can just write CSS in an SCSS file). I just think that Rails is a complex system and not really conducive to being the first exposure people have to Ruby web development.