They way I play requires cheats. I like to set up a whole neighborhood before playing with some families being rich and others being poor with lots of families somewhere in the middle. So money cheats are a must for set up. Then I build the town from scratch so building cheats are important. I also like for my neighborhoods to stay a certain way so I have poor neighborhoods that are dark and dreary, normal hoods that look all different ways, and super rich areas that are the best of the best, which I'm using the eco lifestyle footprints to achieve without doing the actual gameplay from them.
Cheating while playing is definitely to make it harder or remove stupid things that make the game worse (like the stupid fame walk).