"Cheating" can only be defined by intent. Many hard core Abo knappers are vociferous in their condemnation of slab knapping and if you aren't using certified Abo tools and techniques (tools and techniques vary depending on the beliefs of the individual Abo knapper, but that's another story) then you aren't knapping at all. On the other hand, there are those knappers (fewer, I think, but I know some) who will condemn anyone who spalls out a nodule instead of slabbing it, as wasting a resource; kind of the knapping version of tree huggers. I would suggest the following: If your purpose is to replicate points for either personal satisfaction or to experiment with how our ancestors may have done it, then slabbing is cheating. We may not know everything about the tools used in the past, but we are pretty sure they weren't using diamond tipped saws to slab their material. If replication isn't your goal; if you just want to make points, then there is no such thing as cheating, providing you represent the finished product for what it is; a reproduction rather than a replication. For the purpose of the above, I define reproduction as creating a piece that looks as much as possible like some particular object, without regard to how it came to look that way. With replication, on the other hand, the techniques and tools are every bit as important as the finished product. Other definitions may be different but I think you get the idea. The slab vs spall controversy isn't going to go away but this is how I see it.
