There are some real problems in the PHP community, like the terrible mismatch between the PHP core and PEAR developers, and the fact that nobody's got the guts to declare PEAR a failure, put it down, and start something new. However, other than that, the people I know involved with PHP are reasonable people.
For me the trouble w/ PHP is that it works too well.
I've got a small project w/ 40 hours budgeted for it, 20 of those are software dev, and 20 are corporate identity and marketing.
I have libraries that smooth over the worst flaws of PHP and answers to error handling, sysadmin, and all that. I know the odds are very good I can slap this thing onto one of my production servers, push the 'go' button, and have it work for 2 or 3 years before I need to look at it again.
Ruby may be nicer, and Java is better for computationally complex and intensive stuff (not this) but adding a new language to the mix probably means more hosting costs (maybe abother $60-120 a month) and probably turns that 20 hours to 60. It will take me a long time to have faith in the stability of another hosting system too.
The reality is I nail out quite a few of these mini projects, some of which succeed, and many of which just smoulder. With PHP I can get them done quick and done well and have low hosting costs and little maintenance burden.
To get me to switch you need to quit complaining about the faults of PHP and build my faith that your hosting system is a 'wooden round' that won't cause my 20-hour project to cost me 50+ hours a year in maintenance costs.