I feel like I'm on the wrong side of the road, and php is web 1.0. I wonder though, do users care what language the site is made in? And has usuability and quality of a site become determined by programming language?
Basically I see the PHP backlash coming out of many painful personal experiences that hit the limitations/drawbacks of PHP. I've maintained a large social networking site written by someone else and I can tell you it was a stinking pile of spaghetti.
I think the power comes from using a framework like RoR of Django that abstracts aways common parts of web development. Plus I see it as a way to keep from reinventing the wheel which leads to simpler code. And we all love simple code.
Anyway, just my thoughts on the matter.
There are some impressive PHP projects out there, with pretty clean code (I've been pleased by the quality of code in Dokuwiki and Flyspray, for example), and you can't beat PHP with a stick for availability--you can deploy a PHP app on the cheapest Dreamhost account and expect it to work just fine. That cannot be said of RoR, Django, or Catalyst applications (and don't even think about Lisp or Haskell or Erlang in that context).