I've never had to convert the text to outlines to use the shear tool (for example, to warp type to follow a 3-dimensional graph). Just select type, click on the shear tool, click on the origin then toward the end of the line and drag to bend the type.
I don't find the tool really intuitive, though, so I either do it by the numbers (option/alt click to get a numerical dialog box) where I have a known distortion or try out a couple of things before it seems right. (It would be cool if selecting the tool put a distortion box around the object so you could drag selected corners. Maybe some other version...)