I think people read way too much into the ORM label. Diesel is very much a query builder first, not an ORM. As a random data point, I've been fixing bugs in Rails lately by basically copying over code from Diesel and converting it to Ruby. That code has all been in Arel not Active Record.

I agree that the "I make Rails" thing is a double edged sword. I would hope people would see it as an indicator that I have a lot of experience and lessons to learn from, but I think many people see the opposite.