I scanned this thread pretty quickly so plz forgive me if what im going to say has already been said.
heres my opinion so keep in mind its just that; an opinion.
they tell you whatever feels natural to u is the way to go. I used to lay my ring finger on the fretboard. I learnt to play without it as well on occasions (to access some notes with hybrid picking when need be). Same goes with strict alternate vs economy picking.i beleive we should know both to add colours to ur palette.
I wont go more into details but what im trying to say is that ultimately if you want to be free you have to have different methods of visualisation.
caged is good. Three notes per string too.
another great visualisation technique that helped me a lot was playing one octave modes.
starting with the first finger one octave of each of these modes. The. Starting with the second and finally with the 3rd or 4th (depending on the modes fingering ull know). But the key here is to pay attention to the intervals!! That way u wont be learning a new mode each time. Itll be easy to learn new scales quickly and is great ear training because ull understand as well as feel why they sound the way they do.
then switch to another set of strings. To recap lets say u start on the 6th low E string with the index finger one octave of that mode after mode.
then middle finger one octave of each
finally pink or ring finger same thing.
now start on the 5th string with the index etc
once you get better at that you play more than one octave again still paying attention to the intervals.
another great exercise to help u learn these scales faster is inky playing one interval and nothing else!
so say were in the key of A. Play the b3 surrounding the root. Then go to another root on another string and find the b3 around it.
i recommend checking out Tom Quayle's fretboard visualisation tutorial that u can buy frim his website.
each visualisation technique has its advantages and weaknesses.
i say why be in a hurry. lets learn them at our own pace and benefit fron them all.
again that is just my opinion. i dont have much credit either as i am not done with that phase to speak as an expert: im currently in the process of learning the fretboard. I say this however because inhave been seeing some results although i have yet so much work to do!
Keep in mind the learning curve however. It is more exponential than linear. What i mean is it is daunting yes but more than it should be because the more you learn the easier it is to learn the next thing as things start to connect sinilar to intervals. The faster you get at seeing them and hearing them the easier it is to learn more stuff like chords arps new scales etc
either way happy learning!