Using computers, it has been found that there is a limit of some 21-23 moves to solve any configuration of the cube, so in theory if you knew all the billions++ possible states, you could just do the required 2x steps as fast as possible and then work on motor skills from there, but of course reality is that you can't memorize them all so it is some kind of tradeoff between knowing a lot of patterns and applying the shortest solution you know to take it closer to solved.

All the people solving in seconds aren't even using the same methods, so some will be better at planning while they look at the cube before the start, some will have faster motor skills.