When it came to learning for solo performance I basically got the tabs for what I wanted to play and then persevered for months whilst listening to the originals. As with anything, it is awkward to start with but you get there in the end. You'll then find that little bits of one arrangement help in others and the more you build your repertoire the easier it gets right up to the point that your fingers play strings in different patterns that you never consciously learnt.
There is value in learning some patterns, but it's such an open ended subject that you may get bogged down turning to learn certain ones that you subsequently find aren't too handy or find it difficult to break out of.
If you find a passage in an arrangement that has a certain pattern you may pick it out and practice that in isolation until it becomes second nature.
2 other things that I've recently started doing are finger exercises on my fretting hand to build individual finger articulation and independence, concentrating on getting good, accurate clean notes. Along with this I've started moving my thumb to the back of the neck as opposed to hanging over the top. This does make a difference, but I'm not rigid with it, I still use my thumb over the top to fret the 4th string.
As with all things, play what you enjoy and try to play things that are beyond your self acknowledged capabilities. If it's fun (and challenging), you'll learn.