If RSA is limited to 117-200 bytes or so, is that a very limited use case? Am I missing something, or is RSA very very limiting when it comes to ecrypting data when it comes to the actual message size?

I have read that you can only encrypt a message of around 117 to 200 bytes in size (depending on your key size: 1024 or 2048 bits). Is this correct?

If so, I think I have read people suggesting on using it for larger files. I guess they are just repeating the process many times over and over in blocks of 117 bytes?
In practice, asymmetric algorithms like RSA are usually used for key transport. In other words, instead of a true message, they are used to encrypt a secret key for a symmetric cipher.

That symmetric cipher key is used to encrypt the actual message, and that could be gigabytes, depending on the algorithm. 

Standards like TLS, PGP, and S/MIME use RSA in this way.

By the way, a limit of 117 bytes is for a 1024-bit RSA key. Keys that small are no longer recommended.