I've been experimenting with Phusion (mod_rails) and like what I see. I'd like to use it, but have had horrible experiences with Apache and heavy traffic in the past (getting dugg, etc).

I'm also having problems with my current nginx -> fastcgi php setup and wordpress (where php crashes when updating a post).

I've been thinking about switching to a setup with nginx in front of apache to serve static files. Then apache would serve both Rails and PHP apps via mod_rails and mod_php.

Has anyone done this before? Anyone have some links to some good tutorials, sample configs, etc? Looking for advice.
Thanks in advance!