Well, if you earn your living in flight testing you need to evaluate these limits - which means getting airborne close to them. On occasion it goes beyond what you were hoping for - unsurprising since you are deliberately getting airborne in nasty weather conditions.
Once had a TP (he was a Harrier pilot) in a light FW type at Boscombe, he had the circuit to himself since at 25kn total wind we were outside ejection seat limits so all the FJ had been put to bed. Wind got up to 35 kn which was beyond safe landing limits - no problem he had 4 hours fuel on board and plenty of daylight. So, he amused himself by flying go-around circuits then at the end of downwind on one, he stopped and flew backwards the wrong way down the downwind leg. SATCO took some time to get over that one.
On another occasion - actually a few months ago, had to fly some climb performance and stalling tests out of a GA airfield "somewhere in England". It was a windy gusty day so we climbed up to about FL80 in the overhead. We had a GPS installed and for half an hour whilst we were consistently pointing into the prevailing wind it was reading within about 2nm of the same spot, a G/S of between 5kn and 20kn, and a constantly variable heading.
And once flying entirely for pleasure in a microlight with Mrs Genghis in the back for a trip out for lunch the forecast 20kn wind turned into 40 and I did a near-vertical walking-pace arrival at a Gliding club. As I'm sure others will agree, it reminded me that close to the ground strong winds are seldom steady and flying any kind of circuit becomes very hard because you can't help trying to use visual references and they do refuse to move in the direction and at the sort of speed instinct normally tells you to expect.
G