I’ve explained that difference many times. You may not care about it, but it is a difference: one is writing, one is editing (presumably, although, like I’ve said, I have my doubts that a teacher who would take the shortcut of asking a student to draft the letter would somehow resist the shortcut of submitting that letter without a major rewrite.)
Teachers are asked by colleges to write letters of recommendation, not to revise them.
I wrote every letter from scratch, and I’m neither nuts nor did I have too much time on my hands. Instead, I was being both ethical and responsible, and, maybe more importantly, I was happy to recommend my students and I had things to say about them that I wanted colleges to know.
Again: what message does it send to a student when a teacher abdicates her letter-writing responsibility and allows a student to recommend herself? What ethical message are you sending to that student?
Oh, and how about that little issue in the common app where the students have to declare that they haven’t seen their rec letter?
Taxonomize it however you want, but it’s part of a teacher’s job, and outsourcing it to the student is an abdication of responsibility and ethics. Lazy or shady or both.