What it comes down to, in my eyes, is that wood iron poles can go 50m high before breaking due to vanilla build restrictions. Add in 8m down and 8m up for foundations created with pick and hoe, and you're looking at 66m of build height in the vanilla game... that's at least 22 3m "floors", or ~ 16 4m "floors"; well above the "5 stories" the OP claimed as the maximum height without obviously cheating.

For that matter, one can easily have "5 stories" completely below "ground level" (assuming 3m per floor, and using wood floors... because stone floors are much taller), never mind moving up from there.

In fact, I hadn't even considered mods to "ignore build height" or "add new pieces"; it looked to me like the OP was simply saying that "large builds are cheated" because of materials costs. The only thing I could think of that might necessitate "cheating", therefore, was the OP's mention of "actually gathering the material"... which seems like a silly thing to call "cheating".

I'm merely seeking a definition of terms, here; what does the OP consider "cheating" in this context?