Perhaps the reason you have never had to think about it is because you developed a good foundation for reasoning about algorithm time complexity?
I will say that I have never personally had to concern myself with a sorting algorithm (though I can definitely think of areas where one would), but pretty much everything else I have learned about algorithms has been extremely useful both as "tools for thinking about problems" and actually making correct and practical choices.
Sorting algorithms are taught because they are such a fundamental operation AND they provide some good "easy" examples for how different approaches can give you dramatically different performance. Some lessons can only be learned by actually seeing it for yourself.
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Perhaps the reason you have never had to think about it is because you developed a good foundation for reasoning about algorithm time complexity?
I will say that I have never personally had to concern myself with a sorting algorithm (though I can definitely think of areas where one would), but pretty much everything else I have learned about algorithms has been extremely useful both as "tools for thinking about problems" and actually making correct and practical choices.
Sorting algorithms are taught because they are such a fundamental operation AND they provide some good "easy" examples for how different approaches can give you dramatically different performance. Some lessons can only be learned by actually seeing it for yourself.