The softness of light is dependent on two things. The size of the light source and the distance to the subject.
When you bounce the light off of walls or a ceiling, the size of the source in increased dramatically, which softens the light. The Fong Dong works by spreading the light all around and hoping that there is something to bounce off of and send the light back to the subject. With walls and a ceiling, it works well. When there are no good bounce surfaces, it wastes an awful lot of light.
So you could point it forward...and with the dome on, it will soften the light only a little bit because the size of the dome is only slightly bigger than the flash. However, the dome will block/absorb some of the light and spread a lot of it around, in directions that are useless to you. So it's quite wasteful. IMO, you would be better off shooting the flash directly.
A bounce card does work well, when you are bouncing the light but won't do anything for you if there is nothing to bounce off of.
With any of these flash accessories, the key is to know when & where they will be effective and when they wont. A good understanding of light is much better than any accessory.