[en] High-spin states in ²⁴Mg have been investigated by the reaction ¹⁰B(¹⁶O,d)²⁴Mg up to E*approximately24 MeV. High-spin states with I>=9 have been identified at E* =19.20, 20.26, 20.8, 21.6, 23.1, and 23.5 MeV. The 10⁺ yrast state in ²⁴Mg is probably located at 20.26 MeV. The upper limits with respect to spin and excitation energy of the applicability of heavy-ion compound reactions for particle spectroscopy of high-spin states are discussed. The main limitations result from the increasing continuum and from a decrease of the high-spin selectivity when the final spins approach the critical angular momentum for compound-nucleus formation. It is shown that the difficulty in the analysis of the experiments arising from the decreasing probability of finding isolated yrast states at high excitation energies, i.e. from the increasing level density, can be overcome in such experiments. The decrease in the high-spin selectivity of the total cross section is compensated for spins up to Jsub(max) by the fact that the shape of the angular distribution depends on the final spin for states with I approximately Jsub(max). This is caused by the decreasing alignment of the final nucleus with increasing values of mod[I-Jsub(max)] and can be used for high-spin spectroscopy. (Auth.)