It is a FORM of cheating, yes. As basically the game was designed to have a character beat enemies, do missions, and go up levels. Basically, that IS the whole game.
Now, in order to make it so that the above mentioned fighting enemies and gaining xp works, even in certain situations (like one member chases after an enemy that ran and gets far away from the group), the code needed to be put in that allowed any member of a team to be anywhere in the zone and still get xp.
IMHO, playing the game in a way other than that intended by the devs in a form of cheating. They didn't put that code in there in order to allow people to powerlevel. They probably weren't thinking of powerleveling at all when they designed the game, other than to say "Well, this is going to happen, and if we try to stop it, it will only make the game worse for those who don't powerlevel".
You are right that it doesn't DIRECTLY affect me. However, it does indirectly affect me. When, say, everyone who is my level is powerlevelling, and I am unable to find a group, and I am a group support class who doesn't solo well, then it does affect me. If I am also unable to experience a TF because I cannot find enough people to meet the minimum requirements due to everyone PLing instead of grouping, it does affect me. It also affects me if a large number of people are all PLing and the devs decide that all new content should be level 40+ because that's what level the majority of players are, when I and all of my friends who play the game play it normally and are all 25th (just examples, not actual numbers).
I play the game to play with other people. I want to group every time I log on. If there is no one for me to play with, I will likely quit the game. I've found that in other games, PLing starts a cycle of PLing. Because there are a few loud complainers who PLed to 50 quickly and are complaining that there is nothing to do at 50, the devs say "Alright, there aren't very many people at level 50, but if it has started now, there soon will be. We should fix this before too many people get there". So, they start adding level 50 content, and it causes a lot of low level people who wouldn't have considered PLing to say "I WANT that stuff they added at level 50. I want it badly, and my PLing friend got there already. Screw it, I'll let him PL me to his level." So, with all the people PLing, there becomes less and less people actually playing the game normally as without groups, each person resorts to PLing more and more to get to where the majority of players are still playing (at high levels).
So, anyone who decides to start a new character because they actually WANT to play the game from the beginning again is screwed because of PLing.
Don't believe me? It has happened to other games already.
