Design patterns are what let you deal with the mess that results from that.
Besides, Peter Norvig, even as of 1996, is not not the sort of neophyte you’re referring to.
It's possible to understand design patterns and work in a language that doesn't require them as much.
Here's a talk about it from 2009 with regards to python.
I think in some ways AspectJ can make the observer design pattern obsolete in Java. I have arguments against doing it in aspect way, but it was revelation nonetheless.
Back in the day (before open sourse become so prevalent), lots of software was designed from scratch with the minimal use of outside components and frameworks.
Today OSS frameworks (especially web frameworks) and libraries, PaaS, and Cloud provides you with an already baked-in design patterns. So there is less need in SW Architect and proper design.
Also, most of the Gang of Four patterns are just addressing the deficiences of OOP and older PLs, so if you're using a modern PL with closures/etc. there is no need in them.
If I went through and inspected any Node, Rails, Django, etc app I would find many Gang of Four design patterns, but very few of them would be in the project-specific code. They got implemented well, and now programmers can build new things that would have taken too long to do before.
And that was the intent of the Gang of Four book, not to teach you patterns you should copy mindlessly, but to give examples of how to identify and extract useful patterns from the software you've already written and describe them to others. Since that is a lot more difficult than memorization, very few took up that work.