As you already stated, targeted exercises don't work for fat loss. So if I want to lose fat in my stomach, all the core in the world won't work. I can simply follow whichever diet achieves fat loss for me, and hope it will come off eventually. I'm always last to lose in my thighs and butt, which in addition to being the fattiest parts of my body are also my strongest and most muscled!
You can use targeted exercises to achieve a certain look, though. For example, squats and other glute-based strength training can help lift and shape your butt. Push ups and the like can lift your chest. Certain arm exercises can achieve attractive muscle curves. So it's more about shaping areas than reducing fat in those areas.
I used to focus on my upper body because it's the weakest. Now that I'm a competitive dancer, most of my training revolves around dance improvements. I dance, of course, and I also run to help improve endurance (those 1-2 minutes per dance seem like forever!) and I lift heavy to improve my strength and preserve my muscle mass while I work to lose fat. I'm trying to incorporate yoga as well to improve my flexibility so my turn out and kicks improve. Core strength work is very important for maintaining a rigid upper body during complex dance movements and improves areas such as kick height and leaps.
So to summarize that mass of text (
), I don't bother focusing my training on spot-reducing fat. I focus it on effect I want to achieve either visually (squats!) that involves muscle training or to reach my dance goals.