Oh yes, making things from discarded pallets is today's 'in thing'.
While wood used for pallets is about the lowest grade there usually is 1 foot sections or so of perfect grain that can be used to create clever objects like book ends, small shelves, desk top organizers etc.
Some are actually using palled wood to create rustic wainscoting, and it can look good.
With all the importation we see today lots of exotic woods are used in those pallets.
Years ago when Luan was popular for paneling I obtained the crates which consisted of 2 ea 1 x 6's 4 and 8 ft long.
Luan is in the mahogany family so about 20% of the 'crates' were nice dark mahogany.
The yard was going to burn the crates.
So my back yard was fenced in mahogany and lots of small furniture and other items in the house.
LOL, my home office walls were mahogany wainscoted as well.