They aren't well suited to just punching things directly, no. But it could be useful in a grapple, and with several of the unarmed spheres, allowing you to deal unarmed damage after or as part of maneuvers. The Maneuver Mastery esotery can help here, allowing you to treat your level as BAB for your CMB. Alternatively, the Infuser package also gets around low BAB for maneuvers, by turning it into a Reflex save instead.