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It was SOP in the piston airliners for decades.
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I went to work for a firm flying four engine radial powered airplanes, and during the initial ground school, was dismayed to learn that the company actually had a policy of running one engine with a half hour less fuel than the outboards, and one inboard engine with an extra half hour. The theory was that when one engine ran dry, the outboards had a half hour remaining, the other inboard had an hour, and the dry engine could be crossfed off the hour engine.
Most stupid thing I ever heard.
I refused to engage in that idiocy. There is no good reason to run an engine dry.
Why not always carry an extra hour of fuel on board, I asked. Why not, indeed?
It's hard to run out of fuel if you don't burn off the bottom half of the tank, unless you so badly mismanage the fuel that you've left yourself no choice.
Don't run tanks dry. Carry enough you don't have to, and plan ahead to you don't need to engage in that foolishness. It's an unwise thing to do.
We never ran large radials dry, incidentally. The one company had a policy when I arrived, but it didn't take long to get that policy turned around, and I didn't know anyone, personally, who was foolish enough to do it.