Playing it straight would be more reasonably uses for the agonizer. Like sending someone to the gulag, just you get to get them back to their regular job in a hour or so.
Though they could change it up and have the agonizer booth actually be how they power/navigate their version of the Spore Drive, meaning they start to need "volunteers", which starts getting worse and people "choose your pain" for you, eventually resulting in people getting sent to it for minor infractions simply because they need to jump to places all the time to keep the Empire secure from its many enemies and many rebellions. It gets out of hand by Kirk's days of command as it was found to be an effective punishment system even without the drive in the fleet anymore.
Though they could change it up and have the agonizer booth actually be how they power/navigate their version of the Spore Drive, meaning they start to need "volunteers", which starts getting worse and people "choose your pain" for you, eventually resulting in people getting sent to it for minor infractions simply because they need to jump to places all the time to keep the Empire secure from its many enemies and many rebellions. It gets out of hand by Kirk's days of command as it was found to be an effective punishment system even without the drive in the fleet anymore.