Do you have any examples of why RoR is more time consuming to refactor than other languages?
People love to blame the language and the framework, but in reality once you're past the proof of viability point, it's usually worth taking the time to review some of those initial decisions... except now you need to GrOw! :)
The fact that it's rails is irrelevant. It could be any tool that makes you really efficient by never erecting guard rails.