The sorcerer gains 2 sorcery points at 2nd level. However aside from trading those 2 points for another spell slot they seem to have no purpose as no skill that spend points is available until 3rd level.
Did I miss something or is it just effectively an extra spell slot?
There are two things you can do with sorcery points at level 2.
First, as you noted, you can take your 2 given points and make a level 1 spell slot, totaling 4 for the day.
Second, you can turn your level 1 spell slots into 1 sorcery point each. This seems to be pointless, as the only thing you could do from there is to turn another one into a point, then convert them back to level 1 slots for a total loss of one spell. Unfortunately, the wording
You can never have more sorcery points than shown on the table for your level.
prevents you from creating a higher level slot than you have at this level (though the math does work out for levels 6, 7, and 8). Overall, I don't see a point to this, but it may be open to cheese somehow.
There's another potential bonus here. As a Wild Magic sorcerer, it's possible for a Surge to roll 99-00 and grant you your expended points back. With extraordinary luck, this could mean multiple additional slots in a day.
