Yes. There are cards that allow you to tap land (or even any permanent), the ICY manipulator for example can be very usefull in a variety of deck, for example in control deck, you can either tap the mana of your opponent to create manashortage or you can tap its creature, you can also in depletion/mill deck use howling mine and tap it when its your turn...2) is there any instance where swamps (or other basic lands) can be tapped without producing mana?
There are also a variety of instant, sorcery and permanent that have similar ability as the Icy Manipulator.
PS: But it must be said that we have cards such as gauntlet of might with similar limitation that have been added to the official release, althought they are at least as much borderline as this one...
Grü
Abra