> we are consultants

This is the key insight. Design patterns were developed by a set of consultants. Promoted by other consultants. Consultants have perverse incentives, like bankers.

Realizing this made me critical of the design pattern kool aid. I've come to terms that these are going to be around longer than I'm going to be employed writing code. i keep the criticism to myself and avoid them when i dont see fit. Works ok.

As Hoare said:

    There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.
  The first method is far more difficult.

I still prefer the upsides of a shared vocabulary for talking about programming.