Actually, in the Enneagram (Riso and Hudson's anyway), often the types are built on some sort of coping mechanisms.
There might be a positive curiosity to the Fives, but they also have a high-level of anxiety. They usually fear their own incompetence and/or failure, and their strategy is to study something from outside the system until they understand it enough to engage. They only do this when their confidence increases enough. Meanwhile, this also contributes to them being people who learn learn learn all they can and "talk about things" without necessarily doing things -- that is their comfort zone and where they feel competent.
This is why the Direction of Integration is to Eight, which is the "engage and boldly enter the situation" type. A Five with confidence and peace can enter a situation without knowing everything first, trusting their abilities to get them through in the moment.
An average Five remains aloof and non-committal, afraid to engage and fail.
A weak Five will try to engage the world out of desperation... but as a consumer, not a contributor. (Hence the slide into negative Seven, where addictive sensory behavior starts to predominate.)
It's part of the Head/Thinking triad, a "move away" strategy, and generally ambivalent.