As someone who does hiring, I have a different interpretation. Let's say I'm a rails shop and I'm looking for mid to sr. level candidates and someone has 10 years of experience working on Java 1.4 spring based application. I think to myself "this is great, they are willing to do some grunt work but I need to know they haven't stagnated".

It's the stagnation that leads to lower job offers. You need to convince me that you were a dedicated employee for 10 years (which you are), but you also need to show that you're willing to learn something completely different. This can be a side project (doesn't have to be crazy, but slightly more then just going through the tutorial), certification of some sort, or _something_ that tells me you're not just going to write java-esque rails.

I would even go so far as I prefer people with diverse backgrounds, who are really willing to learn, so that we benefit from mistakes they made at previous employers.