I was on a private server that set the sprint cost to 0. There are always people who do dumb shіt because they don’t know better. I’ll trust the stuff I can see in the devkit corroborated by the words of private server admins and/or modders I know and respect, over some cutesy anecdote you pulled without bothering to ask for clarifying details 
I’m speaking for the state of PVE (and later PVE-C) servers back then. I’m not the guy who says “I don’t give a shіt about PVP because I don’t play it”, but I’m also not the guy who will take “PVP is the only thing that matters”. If you guys want fewer rules, I don’t mind, but PVE(-C) servers absolutely need certain building abuse rules.
Think about it in these terms: just like sky bases are an exploit, so is walling someone off on a server with no building destruction.
PVP players had ways to deal with it. There were things PVE(-C) players simply had no ways to deal with.