Lately is a relative term, apparently. Multi-grade oils have been in use for several decades now, and offer significant advantages over single-grade oil.
n the UK, largely due to airfield/hangarage politics, almost nobody has the facilities to preheat engines.
One needn't have a hangar to preheat an engine.
Yet there is no evidence that UK based engines are getting trashed at great rates. I send my oil analysis to a US lab and my metal numbers are in line with the US averages.
The spot numbers for your spectrometric oil analysis aren't nearly so important as the trends.
"Getting trashed" or not isn't really the issue. There's no question that preheating reduces the amount of warm-up time required, and that it does reduce wear, every bit as much as preoiling reduces wear. Whether your engine gets "trashed" or not is another matter.
I'll have to add this to the list of "UK Uniqueness," though. Carburetor heat, mixtures, low altitude flight, and apparently cold weather operation all work differently within the geopolitical borders of the UK...an apparent conundrum in the aviation world from which the remainder of the globe could apparently learn aplenty.
The rest of the thinking world uses any number of available commercial heaters to preheat the engine on the ramp, where no field-supplied power source is available. Portables such as the Red Dragon work just fine.
12 Volt D.C. Self Contained Red Dragon Engine Preheaters
One keeps the cowl on, with insulating blankets, and experiences no damage.