My thoughts on it are it's not cheating.

Here's a fun stick in the argument of damage or stress placed on the pin itself. My spouse holds a PE license and is an expert in statics and dynamics showed me the math that slide saves can often happen with less force being generated on the pin itself than a nudge forward that doesn't cause so much of a danger. Ergo, the math considering all variables and factors dictates that it's more damaging to a single pin to nudge the machine forward than to slide the pin. The irony of it all, every pin will be nudged more than slide saved over its lifetime.

Funny enough, I actually did get a warning for nudging a pin there (with no danger warning either). Was told 3 pins had caught fire from that. I had someone following me in order to turn off the pins to avoid people being able to play replays. It was so bad, that I had to actually ask to quit being followed and then eventually just left altogether. Thankfully Flipperspiel or Sharpe's tournaments didn't provide the same experience.