Well, the situations with coffeescript exceptions and exceptions-from-the-depths-of-hell are avoidable (hint: don't use coffeescript)... indeed Rails makes it easy but just because crazy amounts of gems are on offer doesn't mean one has to use them.

Ruby/Rails certainly has its quirks, and while Rails certainly does seem to be taking on more and more unnecessary dependencies, some are still plenty productive in day-to-day Rails. A lot of pain avoidance in Rails is following its opinions up-and-until it takes you further than you need to go