Maybe a lot of beginner players start off with minor scales and such and never really tap into pentatonic or listen to artists who use them successfully. My group of artists or friends that I hung with starting out, we were really into the classic stuff, nearly nothing modern, so pent riffs were really influencial. Thing I found too, after some years, was that you could easily turn the pent into a minor, major, diminished etc scale by punching in the inbetween notes. It's just that the pent was the basis of my soloing and I went from there. As a beginner Hendrix was my main influence so you've gotta see what I mean. Only thing I missed out on and am working on right now are the huge arpeggio sweep picking techniques and tapping. I don't think I'll ever be into tapping, but sweep picking for sure.