Opinion, for curiosity and banter. :D

Obviously making your own isn't, but is using premade maps like the ones in the Extras considered cheating?

Yes, it's cheating.

I hate you. :P

No. :p

When I bought a collection that had all of the Zork text games together back in 95 or so it had all of the maps for every game with nice envelopes for each one. I had never played the Zork texts before but had played lots of other texts and none of them had maps, to have them was soooo nice. Then, not valuing them as much because they were a little superfluous to me at the time, I lent it to my sister and haven't seen them since (along with a copy of GK2 that has the soundtrack listenable on the CDs, GRRRR.) I don't think it is cheating at all, just really makes the games more playable. It's all a matter if you want to play the map-making game or not.

Depends if the game has mazes or not. Some of those in Zork I are bull****.

*.

*Your milage may vary.

I played Zork1 with maps and had great fun. I don´t know, if I ever had managed to finish the game without one.

Don't consider it cheating, myself, but it's one of the many cases (such as using maps/walkthroughs, savescumming, exploiting glitches/poor AI, etc.), where cheating is in the eye of the beholder. Better to play your single-player game however you'll enjoy it most than to worry about whether it meets some vague and ultimately subjective standard.