I have often also for fun tried the basecurve on playraw images and within the contraints mentioned by @kofa it actually does a nice job…I think in the legacy module order it was a true display referred pipeline because the basecurve I believe was in front of the input profile…but now it sits in the same position as the other tonemappers so its not impacting editing the way it once might have…
By the way this was the image I was thinking of…
Its a tough one…