"Neat" is correct. "Useful" not so much. This exact fire effect is the only thing I've seen GMS2 users do with it and, as newt pointed out, that's a ton of wasted frames. Something like CC's plasma object, particle spray with blend modes, or some canvas tricks could produce much better (and dynamic!) effects at a fraction of the cost.
We can do that with spriter pro but i doubt C3 would ever have that... Scirra doesn't have enough manpower for addon features. Yoyo Games is getting better than Scirra every year that passes. That is just my honest opinion.
Well we haven't seen anything on C3 yet, so. In my honest opinion GMS2 looks pretty empty and is sorely lacking in "next gen" features. It's what GM:S should have been in the first place.