Devil's advocate: grades are a stupid thing; if someone sits in class and learns and for the exam needs to cheat in order to keep up with cheat-driven-grades-inflation, we have not made a comment about that student's ability or anything. The elites may yet be elite.
All that proves is that exams aren't the best way of assessing someone's ability. However, cheating doesn't show ability in anything, other than deviousness.
