It seems to work (for at least some time, anyway) in many Pluses. That's a testament to the large design margins in the clock circuitry, but I wouldn't count on it for a long-term replacement. But it can work (as you've found out), and it's certainly cheap!
Btw, many editions of the Macintosh Bible mistakenly told readers that the battery was an ordinary AA cell, so many owners ended up running the same experiment that you did, only inadvertently.