First of all, you are not alone. I have kept track of some similar suggestions:
Selectingvia pattern commands
https://forum.renoise.com/t/selecting-phrases-with-pattern-commands/40589
https://forum.renoise.com/t/phrases-selection-thereof/39988
Selectingvia midi keyboard
https://forum.renoise.com/t/select-current-phrase-with-midi-keyboard/40052
If you read the topics above, you’ll see the same arguments being raised.
The current keyboard mode has it’s benefits, too. For example, placing different rhythms closely to one another on a keyboard and triggering them using the real-time quantize. So whatever we do, should be able to contain the existing mode + this new “pattern mode”.
Famitracker has something similar to this. It’s “instruments” are more like phrases in Renoise. They reference envelope data but aren’t limited to note ranges and you can apply them on they fly. This image might helphttp://famitracker.com/images/ftScrSequence2.png
In Famitracker, each pattern seems to have it’s own index, not shared between instruments but simply reusable within the same track in the song
Unless I’m mistaken, this seems the same as using aliased slots in the Renoise pattern matrix?