Yes. But if you use "smart layer", you still can't use lot of tools on them :- ) So you might as well stay in 32bit mode.
The format doesn't matter outside of linear/non-linear compositing. It's only input. If you want to do non-clamped, fully linear compositing, you need to use 32-mode, at all the times. And for that, you need linear file format like .Exr or .HDR. None other.
16 or 32bit .exr is linear file but you can use it any way you want, even instantly clamp down to 16bit and continue working. You still has a lot of bit-depth to work with, but it's clamped, so you loose dynamic range.
16bit PNG/Tiff is non-linear clamped file with higher bit depth but not higher dynamic range. You can use for non-linear compositing though.
Once you clamp down to 16bit mode, it doesn't matter what the input was. Photoshop doesn't even know what the file-format was, it just took data from it.
With Photoshop, you simply can't have it all. If you need to composite linearly, do so in 32bit mode and do all you "heavy" tonality adjustments, like exposure. Once you're done with that, convert it down to 16bit mode and do your manual re-touching, or any further color adjustments you want.