It used to be good for getting a head-start in gathering, since those stats were used for getting a bonus attempt. Melding one of those materia would give you another swing at the node before your natural stats from level would allow you (potions worked as well, but you'd need them to take up precious inventory space for that).

But in 4.0, they changed all node bonus to be gained from gathering related stats, so that's not there anymore.