First to note, although oldschool and OSR gamers are among the most likely to call metagaming cheating, there were absolutely aspects of what we'd call today metagaming that were a normal and expected part of OSR gameplay. I've mentioned a little of this elsewhere and may talk more about it in the future, but a lot of the very early games were actually more roguelikes than they were a modern conception of RPG. If you consider the original stories of Castle Greyhawk gameplay, the expected pattern of play was to go into the dungeon, die, make a new character, and try again with the information you learned from your previous character. This is a roguelike play pattern (and also obviously a form of metagaming).
As a result, in old-school expectations, the core distinction between 'normal gameplay' and 'cheating' isn't whether or not the knowledge is purely in-game; the distinction is whether or not the knowledge was gained through gameplay. It was expected and normal for you to use your own knowledge and your own experience, about the game and about things outside the game, to assist in gameplay, and that's still expected today; anyone someone mentions 'player skill', that's a form of metagaming. It's not a negative thing and is designed as part of the games and play culture. The most common example of this is the fact that trolls are weak to fire. An experienced player, who has encountered trolls hundreds of times before, is expected to know that trolls are weak to fire and no one considers this a problem. This is because the experienced player has learned that through gameplay. If, on the other hand, you encounter a unique monster and you learned its weakness by reading its statblock, this is considered cheating. That's because you didn't earn that knowledge through gameplay; you got it by reading the module or the splatbook or whatever.
Similarly, if your new characters go back into a dungeon that your former characters died in, that was expected for you to use your player knowledge; your existing maps, your knowledge of traps and monsters. You earned that knowledge yourself by playing through it. If you've never been in this dungeon before, and you learned about it through reading the module, that's cheating.
So we can see different kinds of metagaming here, and distinctions between them, and one is considered good and normal part of gameplay and another kind is considered cheating. Obviously, the line as to whether something is good or cheating is about play culture and expectations. Talk to your groups, people. In order to help distinguish between different kinds of metagaming, I'm going to classify a few types and give them names.
First up is meta-consideration. Meta-consideration is the recognition that you are playing this game with real humans and you should consider their existence, experience, and opinions when you make decisions. Every form of RPG gameplay that I'm aware of considers meta-consideration to be an unalloyed good, and frankly I wouldn't want to play with anyone who disagrees. An example of meta-consideration is choosing not to summon a giant spider, and getting a pair of wolves instead, if a fellow player is arachnophobic. The vast majority of meta-consideration boils down to 'don't be a dick', but sometimes it's more complicated. Usage of safety tools is also an example of meta-consideration.
The second type identified is meta-tactics. This includes knowledge like 'trolls ill like fire', or simply discussing tactical options with players out of character (whether it's done in downtime or during combat). I have encountered traditions of roleplaying where meta-tactics is considered negative (I used to play a LARP that permitted some forms of meta-tactics, but considered others to be cheating), but in the majority of situations, it's considered fine to good.
Our third type listed here is meta-knowledge. This would be using knowledge about the game world that was learned through gameplay or appropriate player-available sources, but not with your current character. An example would be using the same dungeon map for Castle Greyhawk despite the fact that you started that map six characters ago. Meta-knowledge is considered negative or up to cheating in most traditions of roleplaying I'm familiar with; but as described above, in sufficiently old-school traditions, it was normal and approved.
Finally, we have meta-cheating. I feel no need to hedge on this category because every tradition of roleplaying I'm familiar with considers it cheating. This would include things like reading the DM's notes, reading the module ahead of time, playing the game with a Monster Manual open to read all enemy stats, and so on. The use of knowledge that was never gained, never earned, and is not expected to be available to players, and usually includes lying to the other members of the group about where the knowledge came from.
I don't expect people to start using these terms instead of calling things metagaming; I'm probably not going to use these different terms myself. But I think splitting it out like this helps identify, at least, the idea that there are different kinds of metagaming, and that different traditions and cultures of play will approve or disapprove of these things in different ways depending on context and details. In very old games, meta-cheating is the only kind that is explicitly considered negative and meta-consideration the only explicit positive; but the other kinds could be positive or negative, depending on whether or not the knowledge was earned through your own gameplay at some point. In more modern, more character-focused gameplay, meta-consideration is usually positive, meta-tactics are a maybe, meta-knowledge and meta-cheating are a no go.
Find your culture and find your sweet spot for your own group; both blanket bans and blanket approvals will tend to fail because context matters.
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