[russtrotter]

Yours is a fair question. Theories: * Cheaper to invest in your tools than overhauling your people/codebases/etc * Sense of wanting to give back to your core tooling * The decision maker(s) for the investment just really love Ruby?

[politician]

Theory #4: The performance is actually fine, but the developers were given a project to improve performance in order to keep them around for hot fixes in a codebase they know well and to mentor junior employees.