The "()" thing is something that personally clicks with me in python. I absolutely love methodname as reference always, methodname() as function call always. I'm fetishistic about predictability though.
To your main point, all general purpose languages are good enough at everything. That's how they get to be called "general purpose". But, I would argue that there are 0 languages that are great for everything. There is no language that can be shown to have 0 tradoffs when compared to all other languages.
The thing that often gets over-looked with Ruby is the trade off that many other languages make of developer time and enthusiasm (happiness, comfort, engagement, morale, etc). If you don't believe those factors exist or that they have little value then the trade off the language makes to afford those features is lost in translation.
To make a crude analogy: if I were hiring to get a company off the ground I would love to find a single person to do all of the product concepts, design, implementation, sales, accounting, legal work and support. The problem is that the jack of all trades is master of none and you're likely to get some creative concepting all over your accounting. Languages specialize in thousands of ways over the growth of the language (and hopefully consciously) - much like people do with education and career development. Even at times under the guise of general purposeness.
This is all to say that unfortunately your wanting a language that is great for everything is impossible. But, you might find a language that is good enough at all of the trade-offs you care about without ever trading off all the other things you care about and for all projects for all time.
It may be true that there is no language to rule them all, or it might not be true. Just because people typically are not good designers, good coders and good admins in one person does not prove that programming languages can't be good at everything (they are all Turing complete, after all).
Of course there are always tradeoffs, but some tradeoffs might not matter (that is, there might be no situations in which the tradeoffs would matter.)
I am not yet convinced that Ruby is so much more pleasant than other languages. I don't know Scala yet, but what if Scala is actually pleasant to use? Then Scala might be better than Ruby in every respect. (Not saying it is, I don't know Scala).
Good point. There could be a language that made 0 trade-offs "that matter" vs all other languages. The problem remains that there will likely still exist at least one person for whom some trade-off of little or no substance is important (even essential).
When people talk about power, elegance and abstraction of a language (not compiler, VM, libraries, etc) they are talking about the language platformed on the human brain (something unique to the individual). Ruby targets a certain brain platform while C targets a different one and Scala yet another. Twitter engineers sound like they have brains appropriate for both Ruby and Scala. Scala makes less technical trade-offs toward their end and so there arises a clear winner (for them).
The day we're all using the same brain platform then there could be argued to exist a best language.
To your main point, all general purpose languages are good enough at everything. That's how they get to be called "general purpose". But, I would argue that there are 0 languages that are great for everything. There is no language that can be shown to have 0 tradoffs when compared to all other languages.
The thing that often gets over-looked with Ruby is the trade off that many other languages make of developer time and enthusiasm (happiness, comfort, engagement, morale, etc). If you don't believe those factors exist or that they have little value then the trade off the language makes to afford those features is lost in translation.
To make a crude analogy: if I were hiring to get a company off the ground I would love to find a single person to do all of the product concepts, design, implementation, sales, accounting, legal work and support. The problem is that the jack of all trades is master of none and you're likely to get some creative concepting all over your accounting. Languages specialize in thousands of ways over the growth of the language (and hopefully consciously) - much like people do with education and career development. Even at times under the guise of general purposeness.
This is all to say that unfortunately your wanting a language that is great for everything is impossible. But, you might find a language that is good enough at all of the trade-offs you care about without ever trading off all the other things you care about and for all projects for all time.