Cool discussion. I first learned guitar from a "Music for Millions: Lead Guitar (1972)" book. Forget the internet, personal computers didn't even exist.
The book used "positions" (1 through 5), and renamed the minor pentatonic the "blues scale." The book relied heavily on tablature, just what an early teen (sans patience) needed. While admittedly a limited way to approach music theory, it is a way to learn fingering patterns that can be reused: slide the minor patterns down four frets, and it becomes the major pentatonic scale at the original root. Add a couple more notes to the pattern it's a major scale.
Those additional notes in the pattern transfer to modal playing, as well: the minor pentatonic scale becomes Aeolian mode. Third position fingering (moved to the root position) becomes Dorian mode... That first book called Dorian mode "a minor jazz scale."
The fingering at each position can be moved/converted to the other modes. I didn't learn about modes for many years, but I was using them.
Positions can be tied together with slides, etc., to add "momentum" and build runs. It's an over-simplified way of learning, but does teach a lot of fingering basics. The original position patterns all fell within five frets, so minimal hand/finger movement was required. There are zillions of ways to modify "positions," which physically change phrasing -- once you break out of the riged positional constraint.
There are many other exotic scales (as well as harmonic & melodic minor, etc) that fall outside those simple position fingerings, which are only a basic framework.
Of course you need to learn the chords, and how the scales interact within progressions, WHILE you learn the notes. Too much emphasis on fingering does limit one's understanding of the theory. Even while your playing gets faster...
It's only much later I became aware of other "models" of learning the fretboard, like the CAGED or blues "boxes." They all have a place in guitar instruction, and I'm sure each one effects phrasing in subtle (and not subtle) ways.
Use whatever works for you; take what you like and blend it into your playing style. And you gotta learn SONGS, or it's just calisthenics.