I've messed around with a lot of different oil additives from moly that is also supposed to "plate" surfaces, but needs to be re-added each oil change. To Tufoil which has a good rep...but is not permanent. Teflon.
Have also used Militec...and did an "experiment" with it where I had a failing bearing in an old vacuum that screeched (dry)...tried lightweight oil...gear oil...grease...moly....teflon....none of which lasted long...then added some Militec....does not last forever...but much longer than anything else I tried. Militec uses chlorinated hydrocarbons...many are afraid of these.
Several other "clones" of this type of additive out there.
Several years ago I was on a forum where a guy from Malaysia was adding regular boric acid to his motor oil...manual trans...diff and claiming good results...I was too chicken to try this.
Once owned a 280ZX where I had additives in the full drive train and saw around an 8-10% mpg gain...I was changing the engine oil every 3K...one time using Teflon...the next moly...the next Militec...etc. Back way before gas prices went up.
So in my experience...additives work...though I'm not so sure they've all paid for themselves. But if you mention additive use on forums...you can get some strong reactions.
I suspect that with the MS...the formulation is made to intentionally clean the engine surfaces to allow the boron to bond. You can get some interesting info on bobistheoilguy.com...but not much due to the proprietary nature of lube products....those who know don't talk...those who don't...do. So I should just shut up? ;-)