Would you consider something like this:

def raise_standard_error(message, &block)
  raise_error(StandardError, message, &block)
end

There's also this option if you're not happy with clipping of the error text https://github.com/rspec/rspec-expectations/blob/eb1787f0e1a5ec2c2650048ee60a45d4c9738d78/lib/rspec/expectations/configuration.rb#L59.

What makes you uncomfortable with the current behaviour specifically, how does it slow you down exactly?

raise_error(StandardError, message, &block) does not work since it would still capture all exception and not show the full context of the error message.

The current behavior makes debugging webmock errors hard because it clips the error message.
Changing the max_formatted_output_length would work, but means I have to change it globally to ~2000 and then other tests get more output too.

So ideally I'd like to opt-out of the "capture everything" so I get the raw error message :)

max_formatted_output_length would work, but means I have to change it globally

Not necessarily, you can change it locally to webmocked examples only:

RSpec.configure do |config|
  around(:example, :webmock) do |example|
    old = Rails.configuration.max_formatted_output_length
    Rails.configuration.max_formatted_output_length = 2000
    example.run
  ensure
    Rails.configuration.max_formatted_output_length = old
  end
end

hmm yeah that could work, but I'm more happier with my workaround script, seems simpler/cleaner and removes a level of indirection

Got it.
Do you think there's anything we can do code-wise, or should we close this?

Not rescuing Exception by default would be great, but could break a lot of tests that play with SystemExit.

Splitting raise_error and raise_exception into "Exception" and "StandardError" would be interesting but maybe confusing.

A global setting for "raise_exception_base: StandardError" would be nice and not break anyones workflow.

Unfortunately thats not possible, as it would mean there is a state where the matcher wouldn't pass, but wouldn't fail either. I don't want to open that can of worms. I'm looking at an alternative formatting for the error instead. e.g.

expected /ABORTED/, got #<WebMock::NetConnectNotAllowedError> with message:
  #
  # Real HTTP connections are disabled. Unregistered request: GET https://samson.zende.sk/locks with body '{"per_page":100,"page":1}' with headers {'Accept'=>'application/json', 'Accept-Encoding'=>'gzip;q=1.0,deflate;q=0.6,identity;q=0.3', 'Authorization'=>'Bearer a', 'Content-Type'=>'application/json', 'User-Agent'=>'Ruby'}
  #
  # You can stub this request with the following snippet:
  #    blah blah

oh yeah, that looks nice!

I added a sample implementation idea. I need to generate a few Webmock errors to really see if this idea works in practice.