It is cheating as much as those purists that insist that machine quilting is cheating and you must do it all by hand. Well, I'll keep my rotary cutter, sewing machine and longarm! It has a totally different skill set from longarm quilting, which has a totally different skill set from quilting on a DSM or hand quilting. Personally, I think all kinds of quilting have a place in the quilting world and I think all quilt shows should have different categories for ribbons that reflect all 4 kinds of quilting.