Loving the retro look. But I'm not sure if patterns are as good as colors in communicating data. As soon as the data has even an ordinal scale, gradients or hues should work better.
Patterns are useful if it is intended to be printed (or for other b/w media). For good color prints or screen usage I agree, colors often can do a better job.
You are probably right if the data you're representing is scaled, but this sort of solution is fantastic for categorical data. Also, see other comments re: accessibility for colorblindness. Not necessarily a silver bullet, but possibly a solid solution in some circumstances.
Patterns are actually much better for colour-blind people like myself.
Textures and colors can be combined, for example if you need to select according two different group of categories/variables.