Yeah, it's interesting, I've had the same experience. There's not so much magic lurking beneath the surface. Things are relatively easy to track down when you do need to figure things out; otherwise, things are pretty intuitive.

And when it comes to performance, threads and queueing, not having to deal with duct-tape and gum solutions like Resque (Ruby's "One Ring" (I love it and I hate it)) makes such a big difference.