It might be a selection effect thing: we don't notice the really good cheating attempts, so we just remember how awful most cheaters are.
But damn, most cheaters really suck at cheating. Because, you know, lazy is as lazy does.
I had a bright student who wanted to make honors, so they cobbled together 4 papers (Robert Bates, Elise Guiliano, two others, a smidge of wikipedia), and the language was just wrong.
When I went back to documenting it page by page, the "I thank Bob Bates for his comments" was a bit of a giveaway.
