If that was the case, why don't they do some kind of hardware cap/settings for the game? Clearly someone with max settings and higher FPS has an unfair advantage over someone with lower graphical detail. Oh and we can't forget them gaming mice. Noone should be allowed to use those either...
I am not sure if what eZ` said about BF2 is the same for BF2142, but let's look at what you have just said. You are trying to compare in-game settings to outside tweaks to improve the gaming experience. Sure, setting fog distance to the max let's you see farther, and therefore gives you an unfair advantage over other players. But this option is available to change in the game settings. What I am talking about is outside tweaks, to force the resolution (not available at the resolution selector in-game) to a widescreen resolution, such as command line options or .ini changes. It's comparable to using a modified DLL in half-life games to remove the fog when you are underwater. Obviously there are factors they cannot control, like what kind of hardware is used on the end-users side, but these are the things they can attempt to control. Obviously if the game had support for the widescreen resolkutions, this would not be an issue.
I remember when Diablo II: LoD came out and it offered 800x600 resolution, which was widely considered unfair advantage over the old 640x480 resolution. This is sort of the same thing, but not really.