In my opinion, yes you can successfully use some 0W-x oils in some high performance applications. I also think that in some applications, they are not ideal, such as some 0W-40 oils (ex. M1) in shared sump motorcycles that call for xW-40. That is an extreme example to make a point. I suspect you are thinking of high performance automobile engines. With oils that lose viscosity from shearing and thermal cracking of polymer VIIs, the rate at which they do it starts off high and exponentially decreases since the fracturing is a self-limiting process. The fractured VIIs become much less likely to fracture further. Unless you change your oil within one or two thousand miles, you aren't going to change it soon enough to avoid the viscosity loss, so that's not a practical option. The HTHS viscosity is what matters, not kinematic viscosity. The percent decrease in HTHS viscosity is around 1/2 of the percent decrease in kinematic viscosity at 100C. It's not uncommon to see something like a 13 cst at 100 C oil with 3.7 cP HTHS viscosity drop to 11.5 cSt, which is an 11.5% decrease in kinematic viscosity. So, expect the 3.7 cP HTHS viscosity to decrease by 5.8%, ending up at 3.49 cP.
A 0W-16 oil is much less of a stretch than 0W-40 or 0W-50.
0W-x oil shine the most in arctic and subarctic temperatures. They can also be used well at the equator. The downsides are increased chance, but no guarantee, of higher cost to the producer, lower shear stability, and higher volatility. There are exceptions to those tendencies because all else is not equal.