You can learn rails and learn to program at the same time. I knew how to hack PHP, but I learned Ruby on Rails as my first programming language/framework. I admit I copied and pasted snippets of code probably a dozen or so times, but you learn from that. I learned from those examples, until I didn't need them.
Just because you learn Rails first doesn't make you not a developer, though I would agree that if you're still dependent on copy and pasting then you're really not a developer.
I agree that you can dive into Rails and end up learning it well. And I also realize that people learn in different ways: some really like the methodical step-by-step approach and some prefer the dive-in-and-refine-later approach. You have to do what works for you.
That said, the point of my post is to accelerate the learning process. If you have a handle on Ruby first then when you are learning Rails you'll spend more time creating and less time debugging.
But your point is well-taken and no one should look at this roadmap as the best or only way to learn Rails.
Just because you learn Rails first doesn't make you not a developer, though I would agree that if you're still dependent on copy and pasting then you're really not a developer.