Oh sure, it's great. I would carry every piece of loot out of a dungeon and stagger to town (before I discovered horses). Now that I know how easy it is to make money, I don't bother. But in those early days, I'd shout my way to town. The first time...

Edit: fixed spoiler tag - sorry folks!

Shouts are a different magical tool. In some situations, shouts are essential; many examples come to mind in the main quest. Beyond that, you need to figure out how best to use them. You can certainly do without, as I'm doing now, but I miss Become Ethereal, Slow Time, and Whirl Wind Sprint. As for alleged incompatibilities between shouts and stealth characters: Throw Voice!

Meh turn the brightness on a microscopic bit and you're done.

From a roleplaying standpoint that doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?

Aura whisper, ice form, whirlwind sprint, unrelenting force, slow time, become ethereal have all proven useful for me multiple times. I'm sure I'm forgetting some as well.

The biggest travesty is that the 'shout' key replaced the 'grab' key from other Bethesda titles and now we have the awkward hold E (or controller equivalent) to move things mechanic going on

Disarm is great, works on all but the highest-level regular NPCs (but not on most bosses). A Draugr Deathlord is far less imposing when it's hitting you with its fists.

Cyclone has a similar effect to Unrelenting Force, I like it lots.

Become Ethereal is how I get down from the Throat Of The World, or anywhere up high.

Dragon Aspect is useful in boss/dragon fights.

Ice Form is handy for crowd control, especially without a follower/allies going round un-freezing enemies by attacking them.

Marked For Death is also essential for boss/dragon battles.

Ohdaviing/Durnehviir come in handy.

Huge full moon? Exceptionally bright aurora? Blinding starry night? All the 3 options sound plausible since Skyrim does not suffer from light pollution.

I think you just have to use different shouts to complement the way you play there are by no means usless

The Thu'um fit in skyrim, but I wouldn't use it in future games.

I like the Throw Voice, especially if you're sneaking but the enemy is looking for you. Try it sometime, it works to help you get by them as they run around looking for where it's coming from. It's also fairly humorous, as when I do it there are insults thrown. lol

I use quite a few shouts, tailoring the use to what I am doing. They are not my main source of damage, rather part of the strategy in carrying out my attack or defense.

I have tried it a few times. Every time the enemies have come to seek me from right place and have found me. I prefer to use arrows instead - arrow hitting sound leads enemies always on locations where I wish them to go.

Oddly enough, the most powerful shout I've found to be is Frost Breath but ONLY after obtaining a particular upgrade for it in the Dragonborn DLC.
It becomes outright overpowered and I stopped using it when I realized this.

Sadly, this about the only way you can make these do any respectable damage. Setting it up usually takes longer than just killing the damn thing, but it is pretty awesome to give a dovah a taste of its own medicine and kill it with fire breath.

Marked For Death is an insanely useful shout for an Unarmed practitioner.

Throw Voice is similarly insanely useful for a stealth shooter. It's like the ball of rice from the Tenchu series - completely innocuous on its own but a deadly weapon to the right person.

Only the Greybeards and Dragons can lead with shouts but you must use them as support/backup abilities. I use Fire breath (with the Fire Within meditation) to damage hallways full of hostiles, I use marked for death to give me the edge over a better equppied opponent, Unrelenting force to stagger or knock enemies off ledges, and Soul Tear to get a quick zombie from the enemy ranks. These are assist powers rather than focus powers

But a Perk tree for the Way of the Voice would be cool and it would make the "Dragonborn" character more appealing

It depends some shouts are really great like Elemental Fury, Become Ethereal, Unrelenting Force, Dragonrend, Marked For Death and Soul Tear.

Others simply look badass like Dragon Aspect .

I think Slow Time is extremely useful. I can wipe out large mobs before they know I am there.

I love using Dragonrend, so many dragons wont land unless you damage them enough. WW sprint is fun, but not really useful to me. Unrelenting force is useful when facing a group of enemies for group CC, but other than that, I dont use many of the other shouts. The ones that do damage just dont compare to my bow or swords, so no point to use them imo.

I agree. I've played entire games without shouting (except where storyline dictates it), and I've played games where I used shouts extensively .

The problem that I have is this; cool down takes too long to use shouts as a primary attack.

Also, (as far as I know) you don't gain experience from using shouts. I checked my Destruction level, then used Fire Breath a few times and my destruction level stayed the same (?)

I then switched to "Wall of Flames" and "Fireball" and my exp gauge went up.

As someone mentioned, some shouts are handy, ....... but no experience. ??

Ice Form is pretty damn good. Just started using that after getting the last word for the full shout.

Great for a mage when you suddenly find yourself surrounded. Freeze a few of them and then take out one at a time.

Unrelenting Force is always good for a laugh and helpful for crowd control. Whirlwind Sprint is pretty good for getting around quickly.

Dragonrend obviously great for dragon fights.

I'm not sure I use many others that often though. My main character at the moment is a mage and so some of the shouts are inferior to my magical abilities. I'd like to try Slow Time and Disarm but some of the words are locked due to quests and my mage won't be doing them.

I find all the shouts completely useless, and that includes dragonrend outside of the MQ.

What basically happens, is that shouts like Fire/Frost Breath and Storm Call, lose their significance on master and legendary, as their output is being reduced at 50% and 25% respectively. Even the Unrelenting Force-Dragonborn Force combo doesn't work properly there. A perk tree would be useful and I've seen overhauls that include such a thing.

To have these shouts mean something in the vanilla game, you have to switch the difficulty back to Adept (around which they have been balanced), strip your character's fortify combat skill enchantments, and stop using "supersmithed" weapons and armor. In short, play adept as if it was legendary and... have your fun once again