Well, yes Ruby is just another language like Perl or PHP not a holy grail. Rails is just a facilitator of good programming technic.

But the thing about Ruby is that it is was built using OOP guidelines and principles from the beginning. PHP on the other hand was not and is slowy adapting them now. With PHP 5.3 there will be a significant change in how OOP style programming will be done in PHP. But PHP will still not have the ease of use that Python, Ruby and C# provide out of the box.

Here is the problem with most that try Ruby, Rails. Those that try to build with Rails only discover the shortcomings of PHP in relation to Rails and not Ruby. Those that try .NET or Python have a better experience and gain more perspective because they are not blinded by a framework (although .NET is a framework it is not limited because of the CLR).

So when you say you want to give Ruby a shot then do just that. Stay away from Rails. Also try and program using something other than MVC. Do a fair comparison of Ruby vs. PHP using other patterns ( I recommend Matt Zandstra's _- PHP5 Objects, Patterns and Practice for ideas) and you will see the elegance of Ruby show.