I'm not sure where you're getting the lame part. Anything made improperly or filled with cliché will be lame, but rejecting a concept based on previous butchered attempts is pretty damn silly. Tarot in fiction was always a tool to create a certain mood, as most adventure and rpg games rely on mystery, sorcery, unexplained events and irrational fears. If tarot HAS a place in our culture, it certainly is in fiction, where it can thrive on the uncertainties and imagination of the player/reader/viewer.
After playing Pandora I didn't go around hunting for government conspiracies and Alien spacecrafts, but outside of the pure entertainment it provides, the fun element I took with me was the "what if" factor, and it's just as true for witchcraft, deities or tarot.
"I want to believe" pretty much sums up my love of the X Files series and explains a whole lot about the psychology of fiction.
A bit off topic, tooth ache keeping me awake last night my mind got all boiling again with this idea of character generation via tarot and once again I've got this huge game story and mechanic developed in my head and no means to realise it. Frustrations of a lifetime
