Yep, could do that - would be a cheap solution to de-cat the pipes.
I was lucky in that the melted plastic had just caught fire, so it didn't damage the upper plastics at all. I had a friend who had his Vee go up in flames while he was filling it with petrol - he was lucky in that the station had sand and extinguishers to hand, unluckily the 3 yr old bike was a write off. It was a coil failure on his letting unburnt fuel into the RH catalyst.
Even knowing this I still didn't think the misfire I had would amount to anything nasty. The LH exhaust was cherry red right at its closest point to the plastic. After changing the plugs and fighting fitting the recalcitrant undertray I put the LH silencer back on, but it got very hot, much hotter than the RH side, I think the honeycomb had melted/blocked the pipe, so I fitted the Beowulfs and they barely get warm to the touch.