zealot: I agree with your assertion that the object-oriented programming style requires more forethought and design. Modularity and code reuse always demand more effort, since if components are to be reused, they must be generalised for such reuse. Design patterns reduce this effort for us by giving us pre-cooked scenarios that we can incorporate into our designs as appropriate. I personally haven't experimented a great deal with design patterns myself, apart from the Singleton.

Mozilla is a good example of a heavily pre-designed and highly modular piece of software. Mozilla.org had an interesting competiton a few years back where participants were asked to spot design patterns in use in the code, although I never got to see the results.

Want something to belt out a quick hack? I believe in using the right tools for the job: Visual Basic, Perl and Python fill this niche nicely.

Serious programming? Give me Java or C# anyday. I'm prepared to sacrifice flexibility and control for safety. IMHO, strong static type systems are a godsend for aiding in writing correct code.