Merge pull request #346 from meatballhat/merging-v2.5-stable

Merging v2.5 stable
Addressing a bunch of RuboCop stuff, breaking the API, etc.
Cleaning up some goofs and rubocop auto-correct noise
More rubocop config tweaks, adding encoding comments for 1.9
Correcting (or cheating around) latest offenses

and ZOMG how did I miss those unnecessary parens!?!?