One of great (and most terrible) things about the guitar -compared say to a piano- is that the same thing (chord/scale/pattern whatever) can be fingered/fretted in many different ways - but remeber there is never a right or wrong way!

Deciding how to finger a scale depends on what your doing at the time - the 4-fret version you talkng about is great for learning as it produces easily memorised 'boxes'. But when you want to exploring the neck more or are playing longer runs you may want to work with 3 or 4 note (or more) per string versions which are better suited to this.

If you like the 4-fret version (as you call it) get a neck diagram and write out all the forms yourself! It aint difficult and you'll appreciate what you're doing more. You may find several ways of fingering the same scale - decide which you like best.

I 1st learnt the modes by moving down the neck in 'boxes', but changing the starting fret and not changin position is just as valid. Learn both ways and eventually you'll start to connect the 'boxes'.