Funny story on Fletchs quote. You are right some designers act like this and simply copy a site from another. I had a client of me asking me to do some design for him. He showed me his affiliate program and what he wanted.
The next day another guy comes to me and asks me to do some banners. No problem, so he shows me his affiliate program and guess what, the same layout/style/coloring as the one I saw the other day. Now these 2 guys don't know eachother, and the designer of the first site just did some lame copying.
So you are wright about some being cheaters, guess it's just that some designers aren't realy designers at all
Q.