There are multiple times when Goh doesn't catch wild pokemon that he doesn't have. The dozen species in the recent fossil episode, or the Beutifly's in episode 22, amongst others. Also while you can say that he doesn't think about if he should catch them, we haven't been presented with a situation in which he shouldn't. You could make the case that that was what the Diglett episode was, but they were requested to deal with a pest problem, they succeeded, and when the Diglett were revealed to not be the source of the problem Goh left Dugtrio behind.In the majority of cases Goh does throw a pokeball first, but when that fails he moves straight to battling. He has also been battling or befriending pokemon even without throwing a ball for a while now.
Everything the show does indicates that Goh thinks of his pokemon as companions, the fact that we don't see as much interaction between them as we could have is more due to the series episodic nature than Goh's character. Even Ash hardly interacts with his pokemon and they often disappear for multiple episodes at a time. If Goh's pokemon can be reduced to tools due to their lack of screentime, then isn't it the same for Ash and the other cast members?
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