Joomla or Rails?
spooneybarger: Here is the question I have for you, are you versed in php?
If you need to add functionality etc to Joomla, how long is that going to take you to ramp up? Balance that against the time savings you get from ready made components. Also, if you have never used Joomla or anything else that offers 'snap together components', try actually doing it, how easy is it to take the 2 or 3 you want to use and put together, is it really seamless? You might find, that you can do more coding yourself using something else and still save time.