Hmm, this sounds familiar. Would the interested please see my thread "Cheating Sans Guilt" [link]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.69900[/link].
The definition of cheating is what ties our undies in bundles here. Codes and guides operate on a similar principle - you couldn't do it by yourself, so... here's a little something to make it easier. The logic is sorta like what a local club uses in their ads: If you can't find it, you're too stupid to be here. If you just dicked around for long enough, you would find out whatever the guide would tell you anyway and if you didn't well, then you're too stupid to play. Now certain cheats enable things not possible in regular game circumstances, but at the same time, it's still considered screwing around and not taking the game "seriously" if not a "shortcut" to a ton of hard work.
A guide is a tool. If you really, really, REALLY wanna make a bedroom set from scratch using nothing but the minimum in tools: saw, hammer, nails, and sandpaper(and even the hammer and nails part can be contested!), then by all means, go right ahead. But there are better tools that will make that go faster and even people who will do it for you. If you really wanna put yourself through that kind of pain and agony, be our guest. It doesn't make you better than me, it just means you enjoy different things, apparently. However, the nitpicking comes down to whether to bake cookies or buy them. It doesn't take a whole lot of time, effort, or materials to make decent chocolate-chip cookies, but eh, why make the mess when you can buy them? It's not the same, you say. And that's the difference.
It's not the same when you use a guide instead of figuring it out yourself. But some things are just plain hard. If it's too hard and you had to look at a guide, there's not really any shame in that. If it's too hard to run a mile in under eight minutes, there's no shame in that. You can either train, or just let it be. If you looked at the guide, well, just let it be.