The pathfinding behavior does make some things really easy, but it has limitations.
I am making an isometric RPG, and I use the pathfinding object a lot. It's what made the game possible.
I have a couple issues with it though. It is not very good for "tile" based games like Civilization because, as you said, the characters will never go to the exact spot. So, you will have to scoot them over using another event to get them in the exact center, and that never looks very good. This is why I got rid of tiles completely and just let characters walk wherever they want.
The second issue is that it does not handle moving objects very well. So, if you have multiple enemies coming at you, they will walk through each other and even stand right on top of each other. I wish I knew how Baldur's Gate or Age of Empires kept units from overlapping.