You're right, rice flour is nothing to write home about if forced to stand alone in a recipe.

Rice flour, white or brown (I prefer brown) is an excellent basic flour for gluten-free baking because it has such a bland flavor, it works well with other flours.

It is not used alone, but blended with smaller quantities of tastier flours such as Quinoa or Tapioca. It takes a blend of three or four flours with different characteristics, plus usually adding xanthan gum or extra eggs, to compensate for the lack of gluten, because without gluten (think of glue), the recipe will otherwise crumble apart.