I don't think it's cheating to edit the best parts of a performance into a finished piece.
I originally tried to do perfect run throughs when I was recording my album, but had the same problem as you, there was usually just one or two fluff ups that spoiled it.
So I decided to record several takes of the whole piece, staying in the right mood and going through from start to finish, not stopping if I made a little fluff up. Leaving all the tone and level controls alone.
I then went though all the takes and chose the track with the best feel and performance, and used that as the sort of 'root' track. Then replaced any fluff ups on that track with edits from the others.
Sorted.
Just a case of making sure you record all the separate takes in one session and take extra care with the editing to make sure the cross fades are undetectable.
All the tracks on my album have at least one edit in them. I don't think it's noticeable and I don't think it's cheating, it's just being pragmatic
