It is actually really good for recovery. With good mashing it goes the highest and farthest of all his recovery moves. And if you get hit out of it, you do not lose any unused aerial jumps, like you would with Up-B and Down-B. The main drawback is that it's hard to grab the ledge with it.
To get the best height / distance for your Tornado, it is recommended that you change the entire D-pad from Taunt to Special in your custom controls. Doing so can get you heights like these:
As for using the move as an attack, yeah it's kinda bad. It was the case in 3.02, but I don't know if it still is, that Tornado was good on shield, but it's still very situational.