Good _design_ improves long term maintainability. Design Patterns (in the GoF sense) are basically orthogonal to good design.

Besides, Peter Norvig, even as of 1996, is not not the sort of neophyte you’re referring to.

So, here's something I hate on this site. Arguments that are made in the fashion "People who disagree with me must not understand X". When in fact you're often talking to some of the smartest people in programming on here (though, maybe not in other things.)

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSQFZrTDaQ0

Some design patterns work around a bad language, but most are about complex problems. They are a way of describing abstraction, and that is what languages are about.

Even GoF says that class and interface are part of language for C++ or Java can be a design pattern for languages like C.

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.