[sdiy] MCT2 Optocoupler questions

[Andy Eakin]

I posted this over at Muff's but with the recent board issues, 
visibility is a bit low.

Long story short, I am in possession of about 80 of these little 
buggers.  While I have not worked with optocouplers before, I have 
always understood them as an on/off switch for isolating (thinking MIDI 
interface or high voltage switching).  Looking through the datasheet

http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/mct2.pdf

I found some things that have arouse my curiosity:

"Base Lead Provided for Conventional Transistor Biasing"
and
Page 4 Figure 2 "COLLECTOR CURRENT vs INPUT-DIODE FORWARD CURRENT"


This leads me to believe that I could drop one in place of any similar 
NPN BJT and use the LED as a current controlled fun bit.  Is my thinking 
right?

I would love to experiment but my bench is still packed in boxes from a 
recent move.

Andy