It seems to me that there is a problem in understanding "patterns."  In some people's mind these are static things that somehow exist in the mind.  We find the pattern that a particular utterance seems to fit best.  However, I think that what must exist is a device for building patterns.  There are just too many separate patterns, and new ones being invented.  A set of rules to describe the patterns would seem to be more tractable as something in the mind.  And why not describe these rules in a generative framework?  

Whatever the framework, it seems we must have a finite system to describe the infinite number of patterns.  As soon as we are committed to a particular set of rules that do not change, we would have to be talking about competence.  But we know that different people have different dialects (ideolects even) and so different grammars.  A breakdown in communication may be due to not having the same rules to build patterns - - or not using them.   

My impression is that many breakdowns are due to such performance issues as changing patterns midstream in an utterance.  If the listener can make the same changes, there is no breakdown.  Such things, however, can be interpreted by a new speaker so that they become newly describable patterns in his ideolect. They may catch on and become part of the dialect, which then may gain sway in society so as to produce new features of the language.  Non-standard performance, I think, is a major force for language change.  

Bruce



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