I agree with you completely. I've encountered a lot of architects and recruiters who seem to put a lot of focus on knowing design patterns, to a point where they seem to forget that you don't always need to employ a well known design pattern.

A lot of people seem to think, for instance, that the GoF design patterns are the only design patterns. They just memorize the list, but fail to understand when and why (not) to use them. To me, any frequently employed construction is a design pattern, including but not limited to the classical examples.