It is sort of generally true that I usually find myself only using patterns to "fill in" functionality that isn't as easily achievable (or lacking completely) i

It is sort of generally true that I usually find myself only using patterns to "fill in" functionality that isn't as easily achievable (or lacking completely) in a particular language. But being able to do this is incredibly important, and I can think of at least one time in my life when having this capability put myself and my team at a significant tactical advantage. I think you could find a lot of parallels with for example AvE on Youtube, who builds the tools he needs when he doesn't have them available. I never heard any of the hype surrounding patterns, so I can't really say whether or not they lived up to it. But I recommend to young programmers that I mentor to learn about patterns, and it's been my experience that they are universally better programmers for it, even if they aren't using them except in edge cases.