Well, if you assume that you can jump from any system to any system it's pretty useless. If you want to induce some element of randomness to the functionality of the jump drive, then it can be interesting. The problem is, of course, if you roll up a sector with an A starport and no jump lanes to it (unless you want to use that as a hook for something interesting about the system). With the advent of more detailed trade rules it became pretty irrelivant, as trade becomes driven by some sense of supply and demand.
I did use it when I set up my first campaign. I filled in all the jump lanes randomly then used the results to help draw boundaries between colonial clusters, but that was a non-Imperium setting.