Is PHP frameworks bound for patterns?

I was looking into the code of some common and uncommon PHP frameworks, and all of them proudly showed off their implementation of MVC pattern. Some of them were using a variety of other patterns and techniques – and I was wondering, do they really have to?

I was all confused when the different frameworks had their huge folder structure and a lot of stuff you had to do in order to echo out “Hello World”. And they said it was easy and fast. The fastest and most easy is still to write echo “Hello World”.

Its ok and good to implement MVC structure on a framework – it’s almost a nessecity, because programmers all know what it’s about and can easily adjust. But don’t tell me that your framework is special when it’s not. Dont tell me that it’s simple when it’s not.

I think, on the framework I’m building and the projects I’m working on, that the framework frees me from being bound to MVC and patterns (or was it the other way around, that they bind me to use MVC and patterns?). Instead I create my own based on the needs of the site (it be an abstraction of MVC or other patterns). Frameworks, in my opinion, is for abstracting away some code and make it easy to write the application. I like thinking new and creative.

But the again. I never liked frameworks. So my vision is clouded in the matter, I admit that.