User blog comment:ObiWanCokeNosey/You know what really grinds my gears?/@comment-9464517-20150420174834/@comment-1913284-20150426224247

The way they made a point of Oobleck not talking to Ruby in Mountain Glen makes her relative lack of backstory seem inentional. Coupled with Ozpin's interest in her, I get the feeling RT's planning to reveal something about her in a future volume. And, on that note, RWBY is still very early in it's story, so any given character (even the sort-of MC) lacking development at this point isn't unexpected.

Still, it's not like she hasn't gotten any development. She gone from a shy kid who's clearly a little too dependent on Super Sister Yang, to resolving to step up her game after her talk with Ozpin about leadership, and by Painting the Town she's become an actual leader who can effectively direct her team in combat. She gets more comfortable with her team and JNPR, but is shown at the dance to still be socially awkward in general. It's just that her shyness isn't being exagerated to social disorder extremes as it so often is in fiction.

And I'm seconding Anon on the Red Trailer. It looks to have been made so early in the series' development that RT could easily have changed their minds about certain things afterwards. Like deciding to dial back Ruby's abilities.