Anyone "winter sowing" vegetables. . . in the ground?

I've consistently noticed that volunteer plants are healthier and stronger than plants of the same species that I planted intentionally. The problem is that these volunteers are often in awkward locations, in the middle of paths, in crack in concrete, in other places where they will not thrive or will make controlling aggressive weeds difficult.

Winter sowing is the practice of planting seeds in containers which are left outside overwinter, usually gallon milk jugs. The plants are supposedly much sturdier than those produced through other seed starting methods, because they are able to come up at exactly the right time. I'm also wondering if there isn't some kind of "knowledge" of the local climate that is short-circuited if seeds are not in the ground overwinter. The problem is that these plants still need to be transplanted.

Has anyone tried winter planting standard vegetables in the ground? (I know this is common for some flowers, but I'm interested in vegetables, particularly cool season ones.) Just planting seeds in rows or broadcast in late fall, and letting them come up in the spring? Basically producing more manageable "volunteers"?

Yes, do this most years. Where I am, February is a strange month, sometimes bitter cold and then a real warm spell and the ground thaws. I scatter seeds then. Lettuce, carrots, radishes, broccoli. Then the ground freezes again or snow falls. When it warms up things sprout, and they are very cold-hardy. Even if buried in snow later they seem to do fine.

As you said, these plants seem hardier and grow better than things planted oh-so-carefully later in the spring.

I do winter gardening and seed saving. Some years i get more produce in winter than in summer. When i see small plants appearing of Miner's Lettuce or Lamb's quarters i start to sow my saved seeds where i want them, then in november or december i sow quite a lot of my wintersurviving crops.
This takes knowing your start ups and having saved seeds.
Working this way also has the advantage that snails in spring have a much harder time destroying crops completely. The winter growers are so much ahead when snail appear, the small snails cannot outeat the growth the plant puts on when soil thaws, heats kicks in and we get more sunhours.
Disadvantages are that you can't work the soil or dump manure. weeding is about equal i'd say, the shading out of weeds and the need to sometimes weed in winter kind of balances it out. But some cannot put themselves to weeding in winter..Some seeds like Miners lettuce and Corn salad can grow whole carpets blocking weed growth quite a bit. I just keep thinning them out over winter and eating the thinned out ones.
I would advice to sow differing varieties when you want to take this approach. Not all varieties are equally adapted to growing in winter. I have some great succes with snow peas and favas pulling through a hard winter (for France's standards), that was with a landrace someone created up in Scandinavia.
For batches overrun by grasses i go to try a new strategy, covercrop with Rey, shading it out. Pushing it down in may or something, not cutting it but bending it down and put startups of pumpkin and the like in. Or try direct sowing into it.