I don't think it can be a great card, but it is can be a combo-enabler, and I think if one sees it as this, it is most likely to spot when it is good. And in this cases, it can be really good. The point is, you just can't write down the card it combos with, because every combo with Development is a 3-card combo obviously.
But every time you need or want to bring two cards together, it greatly helps when you can top-deck them. That's every Village/Smithy engine, that's KC+non-terminal draw, that's non-drawing Village/Libraryesque.
So if you think about playing an engine like that, and Develop is on the board it doesn't hurt to look if your engine-parts are $2 apart, in which case Develop suddenly becomes a very interesting card. You plan to draw your deck anyway, so just buy one ($x+$y)/2 - card, draw you're deck and develop it to the top-decked start of your engine. Once the engine is running, Develop helps to bring the parts together, and the engine helps to bring Develop and its target together. Of course that's kind of niche, every one of them is a 3-card-combo, (and maybe some additional +buy would also be nice) but there are some of them:
(plain) Village - Wharf/Margrave/Council Room/Rabble/Torturer
($4) Villages - Nobles
KC - Lab/HP/Govenour/(Minion/Market/Highway/...)
Festival/Watchtower
Fishing Village/Library
Warehouse/Library (kind of, with some other village-support)
So that's one "big" chunk of sets where you can apply Develops usefullness somehow almost increases like Outpost's.