Are whole-tone licks EVER useful?

I was thinking about it when I was listening to some older Eric Johnson live recordings, and he made several trips outside familiar tonal territories. I've always liked how he did that, it made me notice it, but it was never so much that it got jarring. Like Wein noted, creating interesting harmonic tension.
 
Piano player told me once he used the whole tone scale runs to find out where everyone else was if he lost his way. Once he hit a note that sounded ok he was good...
 
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