I find DT a very useful micro-managing tool most helpful when working on a project, or for mass-designating tasks (be it per-gender, migrant wave, or job class). Great for if you have numerous peasants, getting them off their lazy asses and get them to speed up certain (not as important) productions (smoothing walls, dumping items, cleaning battlefields, constructing walls/floors/doors/furniture/traps (and cleaning them)/etc. while sparing the crafters and metal workers and experts from the distraction away from the valuable work, and preventing endangerment for the higher-valued workers. Artificers are exceptions and are then promoted (provided legendary upgrade/fey mood)). This is absolutely helpful when you have 25+ or 50+ dwarves living in your fort.
I use DT as it was intended, as a tool, not an interface. I primarily use it to speed up an otherwise tedious task (like stated, mass-designation of tasks and resetting them when done), or if I need specific skilled dwarves most fit to optimize quality > speed. Best example, mass-designating engravers to smooth the walls, and then assigning the masters to do the engraving when the smoothing work is done, unless I mass fortify as well (IE- urgent barracks/defense post crafting; let's say in a cave system or a hellish surface battle commencing). In any other case, I use the shop manager system to assign the workshops to higher-skilled dwarves for minimum, and setup training posts elsewhere (max skill is rather low, but above dabbling, masters (minimum) and above are the prior). We could use a workshop manager add-on if possible, provided it's possible to track them (at least a simple interface setting min/max skill levels assignments).
And lastly, DT also helps as an alert system for in case I get any red-alert dwarves amongst the greens and yellows (Essentially getting forewarning of a potentially psychotic dwarf that can undo tons of work; it's how I managed to recover my airship project after the first few attempts at reclaiming it). So what if I'm avoiding ‼FUN‼; if it means keeping a fort going until I reach a point I'm proud of. I'll still keep a backup of it to see if I can recover it when I'm bored of success, or take on the situations from different angles (or watch the ‼FUN‼ unfold). Sometimes, I just had to wall my dwarves in until they slit their wrists or burned themselves alive, or drowned, dried up, or had their stomachs eat them alive.
I wish I had a more merciful way of putting them down (if there's no hope), but what can I do about that? Plus, they usually find the most efficient way of going out anyhow. Even so, if they're near-psychotic (recoverable rage, random (un)common tantrums), I wait for them to starve/dry up so they're unconscious when I either kill them or injure them so they're hospitalized, but not dead. If I'm lucky, they'll calm down in la-la land, and eventually wake up feeling foolish after being given water and food as they recover. My fort is any luckier, he'll either be imprisoned, or calm enough/ecstatic (dining rooms or epic hospitals, of course) before I assign a sheriff. In any case, I make snazzy freaking jail cells with limited cell numbers (like New Wavehandle; with rooms that nice, they'll be pleasant in no time; if fact, you'd be a fool to not be a criminal, those rooms are fit for royalty). If furthermore lucky, we got ourselves some berserker units for the military.