It is cheating full stop. It's against the rules, who cares if some guy from some team uses one, he is cheating. You may get away with using one, but you'd always be a fraud. You wouldn't match fix, ball tamper, scuff the pitch, so why would you use an illegal bat. Who are you kidding apart from yourself?
The use of laminates in nets do not both me at all, everyone could own one and I wouldn't mind. It's when someone brags about using one in a game and getting 50/60/70-160 runs. Well done. You must be super proud.