I was reading the 37Signals piece in Wired and noticed a reference to those eschewing Rails for, for instance, Merb as it was perceived to be more open to other the use of different components for (for example) AJAX and Object Relational Mapping.

I can understand that decision although I've always thought that the point of Rails was that it represents a 'blueprint' for building the sorts of applications that were prevalent, or gaining prevalence at the point that Rails was being constructed. So it's strength is in enabling the construction of those applications quickly.

But the world moves on. So will Rails become a legacy as quickly as it became a star? Is tomorrow's web scattered with 'Rails Relics' as the prevalent web paradigm shifts once more? Hmm...