Having been there, I don't know what you missed but it sounds like a lot.

The project promised a lot in the beginning and some folks new to a language like Ruby were so enthused by what they could do that they didn't pay much attention to the admin drama at the beginning.

I was there too - I didn't "miss a lot", I just ignored it. The community was still vibrant, helpful, and the language/tools were developing nicely. So some people with big egos (ZS, DHH etc.) were causing waves. Who cares. I don't get swept up in that sort of thing. Not letting it affect you is different from not being aware of it, it just means not getting involved with it.

I'm still very happy with Ruby itself, and how it's developed, and Rails too. While I haven't used it professionally in a while, it's still the language I most enjoy working in. I also used it to get my daughter (now finished college and working as a SWE) into programming when she was a child, and currently using it to introduce my 9 yr old son to coding.