Depends on the decisions, but in my experience the way they've setup to do things encourages the proper balance of productivity, separation of concerns, maintainability and data integrity.
The balance on the database side of things has been most impressive because I didn't expect it at all coming from several years of Rails. In my experience to this point, the idea of letting your database enforce the integrity of your data was generally viewed as heresy. You could do it and the Rails team itself provided all of the tools to do it properly, but it seemed as if the community in general was totally opposed to it. The community shift towards embracing PostgreSQL so heavily has seemed to slowly be steering that trend away but there's still a lot of opposition. I've seen some tragic consequences because of those decisions in the last few years.
The balance encouraged in Programming Phoenix sets an excellent standard for a growing community.
The view + template layer has been a breath of fresh air.
Of course, to each his own.
Phoenix has me more excited about work than I've been in years though and I'm that guy that doesn't shut up about things that he loves. :-)