I used table sugar in A LOT of brewing applications... before I discovered my LHBS has 5 gallon buckets full of corn sugar for $.79 a pound. So I use that just for availability, but not necessarily because I think it is better than cane sugar.
I will mix it into my starters providing up to half the fermentables to cut down on expensive extract use. When I do this I add raisins and/or a packet of old yeast (Montrachet yeast packets are .$45 a pop at my LHBS) to provide some extra nutrients.
You can use it to prime. Since such a small amount of fermentables are added at priming, there is no difference in taste between corn and table sugar.
You can use it in batches of beer. Belgian styles thrive on sugar. It is not like inversion suddenly removes the possibility of cidery tastes, it just adds colors and other tastes.
In my experiences, it takes more than just sugar to give a cidery taste. You need to ferment it hot on top of using a lot of sugar. As long as you don't overdo it (an exact figure I cannot give since I have not tested it to failure) cider shouldn't last any longer than typical green beers.
However, one thing I would watch out for in using sugar is the yeast. If your fermentables are a large percentage sugar, I would worry more about lazy yeast then off flavors. Yeast, like all living organisms, live efficiently. They will go after the simple sugars first, and sometimes they crap out without touching the grain-based sugars. So look into staggered sugar additions and other techniques like that!
