Is anyone actually able to get anything useful out of this? I’ve tried the wrinkling deformer and I mean what I’m getting is not even remotely similar to wrinkles… not for clothing… not for skin… It just looks like a bunch of badly deformed geometry.

Wondering if there are any tricks…

Did you see / read:
https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini//vellum/wrinkledeformer.html [www.sidefx.com]

Like most things in H - powerful, but not drag and drop simplicity. I did make a simple test that worked pretty well. I'd share it, but sadly I didn't keep it.

EDIT: I've attached a rebuild of my very simple test file - play the animation. I hope it helps.