Yes, it is way better which is why many layer package managers, e.g. cargo and composer, took the ideas from Ruby to improve on. Ruby has issues but the package management is not one of them.
What's wrong with bundler / gem?
System Ruby basically breaks "gem install", right? However once you install your own Ruby as a user, it's easy to use.
Interestingly, Ruby was the first language to improve on Perl's CPAN. Maven 2 was inspired by it.