I don't really think that this is true, in the way that it's written.
Well, it's true when it's written badly (eg. the same way as when somebody writes in-line "shellcode" by doing `*(T*)ptr = (T)val;` or similar.
I think there's some history of some compilers that were basically non-trivial to port to other architectures/bit-sizes b.c. of this piggybacking.