These shape patterns being second nature is part of what I would call having a mastery of the fundamentals.
I wouldn't dispute in the slightest that instilling such patterns as second nature is useful or that they are common. They are so common, in fact, that I suspect people who ask about the fundamentals know about (and perhaps even know) them already.
But my sense of what they are really asking is how do you know when to choose between the various options: which White 1 in the above case.
I also have a sense that the problem is something of a western one in that too many people here try to reduce shapes (or other facets of the game) to some sort of essence as an exercise in mathematical elegance. Good shape becomes a static concept when it should be dynamic; people want help on what shapes do (and don't do), not what they are.
In fact, though, if that's what people think they want help on, they are still wrong. It is still starting from the mistaken stance that good shape is the starting point. The starting point should be 'need', the job to be done. Even beginners are quite good at being aware that they have problems. For example, they realise they need to connect their stones better. Like all of us at one stage or another, they see their stones struggling to connect or even being cut off, and they want to know how to end this misery. Learning to choose the best way to connect, or do whatever job is needed, according to circumstance is the most useful lesson here. The correct choice will automatically be good shape, but that's just incidental. That's why an empty triangle can be good shape.
It is very rare to see a list of diagrams showing good (i.e. pretty) shape in oriental books. Even if a book has katachi in the title it will be coupled with something else (e.g. katachi and suji, or static and dynamic [=haengma]). But it is very, very, very common to see reams and reams of examples on, say, how to connect. I have a Japanese book somewhere on my desk at the moment - submerged under others so I'm not sure which one - which talks about connecting. It does not list any of the ways of connecting but does illustrate by examples that, even with similar looking positions you must choose the connection according to whether you want to live or want to create thickness. In other words the good shape there is driven by need or the job to be done.
You don't buy a chain-saw and then look round for something to do with it - unless it's Halloween and you want to star in a Hollywood B movie. You decide what job you want to do and decide what tools you need. If you want to cut some paper, you buy a pair of scissors not a chain-saw. One go equivalent of the chain-saw might be, say, the horse's neck shape. You probably know the shape - but what's it for? Making a list of what it might conceivably do is little real help - we just end up with the "tool for getting stones out of horse's hooves" syndrome.
So what we need to offer beginners (as one definition of fundamentals) is a list of the most common and urgent
jobs they have to do in every game of go. Connecting is one such job. Cutting is another. Extending is another. The list can easily be extended, but is not very long, and acquiring the right way of thinking for one aspect will help every other aspect.
The best example of job over shape I remember, as a eureka moment, from my early days is this one (White to play and live):
(;AB[fs][fr][fq][gq][hp][ip][jp][kq][lq][lr][ls]AW[gs][gr][hq][iq][jq][kr][ks][ir]
LB[is:A]SZ[19])
Very many beginners play A (as I did, the first time), because they are told to play good shape, which is usually taken to imply pretty shape.
But if you understand your job is to connect efficiently, and to choose the right tool for the job, you are more likely not to fall into that trap.
