Using Wind Blades on The Stairs (that's all I should need to say haha) in NG2, not Sigma 2, is one of the most satisfying things to do in gaming. Insane carnage on levels the game simply can't handle.
As for the Ritual Room...well yeah. You just asked if I ever found a use for it haha. On runs where I was farming as hard as I could, I'd already have enough Essence for UF by that time so there'd be no real incentive to farm it for me. Unless you're talking about boosting your Karma score, in which case that goes without saying I'd be UTing it up. Karma runs got boring pretty fast though, hence my earlier talk of no-hit runs and such. I did some pretty masochistic things.