That's a great way of putting it!
> Le Corbusier, for example, deriving systems for living and modular approaches to constructing space
I agree the comparison is apt, but I much prefer Alexander's humane, bottom-up, anarchistic approach than Le Corbusier's authoritarian high modernism.
Reading The Oregon Experiment is great context for A Pattern Language, seeing the way they envisioned the pattern language being used by a community. And the kinds of organisation they needed to couch it in, the way they needed to change the budgeting process to enable many more smaller projects, the way they co-opted staff and students into planning groups rather than have a siloed professional office.
But, sadly it doesn't seem like this approach has been influential. I can't think of many other places that work this way! So while I do also wish more software people had read and appreciated this work, I don't think it's the immaturity of the software industry that prevents us from appreciating these ideas.
In the introduction to A Pattern Language, the authors write "towns and buildings will not be able to come alive, unless they are made by all the people in society". I wonder if this is also true of software.