I agree with what you are saying.
> Carousels are good for things users should be vaguely aware of but are not likely to click on
Carousels should be used to set the _tone_ of the webpage, and not be meant for content to be clicked on.
For example, all major fashion e-commerce website dedicate large amount of homepage screen-estate to a carousel showing their major brands, current discounts, etc. The user can still use the search or menu functionality to look for what they want (and I think majority do), but now the tone of the business has been set.
These news can be about your participation in widget related conferences, about you passing obtaining environmental goals, about some R&D project promising some better widget some time in the future, about community involvement of your company etc.
Most customers will not click on those stories and they are not intended to. But they will get a changing site with changing pictures and will peripherally learn that you are a forward thinking socially involved company that is an R&D leader, participates in the community, etc.