Yes, it's possible. We didn't publish any samples that directly use this class as it was introduced with the KMLLayer and is used internally by the KMLLayer to display ground overlays. Anyway, the code you posted was pretty close. The missing piece is to create and pass an esri.layers.MapImage object to .addImage() instead of a plain JS object.Here's some sample code:
<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7,IE=9" />
<meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1,user-scalable=no"/>
<title></title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://serverapi.arcgisonline.com/jsapi/arcgis/2.5/js/dojo/dijit/themes/tundra/tundra.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://serverapi.arcgisonline.com/jsapi/arcgis/2.5/js/esri/dijit/css/Popup.css">
<style>
html, body { height: 100%; width: 100%; margin: 0; padding: 0; }
#map{ margin: 0; padding: 0; }
</style>
<script>var dojoConfig = { parseOnLoad: true };</script>
<script src="http://serverapi.arcgisonline.com/jsapi/arcgis/?v=2.5"></script>
<script>
dojo.require("dijit.layout.BorderContainer");
dojo.require("dijit.layout.ContentPane");
dojo.require("esri.map");
dojo.require("esri.layers.MapImageLayer");
var map;
function init() {
var initExtent = new esri.geometry.Extent({"xmin":-9005991,"ymin":3866418,"xmax":-8620442,"ymax":4022043,"spatialReference":{"wkid":102100}});
map = new esri.Map("map",{extent:initExtent});
var basemap = new esri.layers.ArcGISTiledMapServiceLayer("http://server.arcgisonline.com/ArcGIS/rest/services/World_Topo_Map/MapServer");
map.addLayer(basemap);
// create and add the layer
var mil = new esri.layers.MapImageLayer({
'id': 'usgs_screen_overlay'
});
map.addLayer(mil);
// create an add the actual image
var mi = new esri.layers.MapImage({
'extent': { 'xmin': -8864908, 'ymin': 3885443, 'xmax': -8762763, 'ymax': 3976997, 'spatialReference': { 'wkid': 3857 }},
'href': 'http://hdds.usgs.gov/hdds2/view/overlay_file/AM01N33_269827W079_1773002011082800000000MS00'
});
mil.addImage(mi);
dojo.connect(map, 'onLoad', function() {
dojo.connect(dijit.byId('map'), 'resize', map, map.resize);
});
}
dojo.ready(init);
</script>
</head>
<body class="tundra">
<div data-dojo-type="dijit.layout.BorderContainer"
data-dojo-props="design:'headline',gutters:false"
style="width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;">
<div id="map"
data-dojo-type="dijit.layout.ContentPane"
data-dojo-props="region:'center'">
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>