I think you are confusing what you learn from a commercial outline and what you learn from a casebook.
Commercial outlines give you the "law" - the elements whatever issue you are looking at.
For example - negligence is the breach of the duty of reasonable care that causes damages.
1. Duty is...
2. Breach is...
A casebook usually gives you a brief rundown of the elements in the intro material, but then the cases give you the reasoning behind why an element is or is not present.
It is important to know the black letter law - what you get from the commercial outlines. Basically everyone goes into a test knowing this.
It is more important to know the reasoning behind the law - what you get from casebooks. This is what seperates the A's from the C's.
Different people learn from different methods, and there is no one right way to study, but what you definatly don't want to do it go into law school with a set method - you need to try different things to see what works for you.
Personally, I read the cases, make a few notes in the margins, and then read that section of an E&E - I don't really use commerical outlines at all (gilbers, etc.) - I just learn better from explanations and problems than from elements laid out - some people are the opposite. It is different for everyone. And different methods will work better for some classes than others.
Just don't try to go into lawschool thinking that you know what will work - try different things to find what is best for you in each of your classes. This year it has been very amusing to watch the people that had it "all figured out" before law school started - first semester, they thought they were guaranteed LR. After grades came out, in second semester, there was a lot less bragging...