I think some owners do tend to do that.
If the oil in the tank has been allowed to drop to the level of gauze feed strainer (you can see it through the oil filler if it has) , then it must be assumed that air will have entered the feed pipe between the oil tank and the engine, therefore if you were to start the engine, the oil pump would be supplying mostly AIR to the big end bearings instead of oil, even though the scavenge side should start to refill the tank almost immediately on start-up, it could still take many seconds for the oil to get down the feed pipe from the tank to the pump. I'm not sure if doing that actually causes any premature big end wear or not, but I don't do it.
There's also the chance that the drive side oil seal will be blown by excess pressure due to the sump being full of oil, so you could end up with engine oil leaking into the primary case.