I use the IMDB widget multiple times per day to look up actors, movies, TV shows. This helps eliminate that nagging "where have I seen that guy before" feeling I get a lot when watching TV. (Also my wife has this thing about how tall people are so I look that up as well. Don't ask.)

Dashflix comes in handy when tracking my queue.

So while Dashboard might not have been the Second Coming (in a secular sense, of course), they're still quite useful for some of us. The trick that seems to bug most folks at first is integrating them with your workflow.