I agree that competent, experienced programmers look at code differently, and much less linearly, than do novices, and there have been studies that show this. On the other hand, a person could (and people do) spend years programming without learning to look at code in this way. The people who do improve must be doing something different.

There are no shortcuts, AFAIK (though I think most people can achieve most of their potential in less than a decade), and I am sure you cannot get there through rote learning. Are you suggesting, however, that the sort of approach I am advocating is not very helpful, or just that it cannot be explicitly practiced?