On the one hand, playing like that can give you insight. On the other hand, it can make you lose lots of time chasing an almost solution. Are you sure that arrangement of 6 was really a solution and did not require some minute bending or deformation?
For infinitely long cigarettes, it is at most 24: http://library.msri.org/books/Book52/files/07bezd.pdf
Is eight attainable? http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1450373
"re you sure that arrangement of 6 was really a solution and did not require some minute bending or deformation?"
It's a good question, but then, it is also a perfect example of why playing around with the real object is sometimes better than applying a theoretical analysis. The question was about cigarettes, and cigarettes do bend / deform. That means that any analysis will need to take this characteristic into account. The problem is, we don't necessarily know all of the factors that need to be modelled to do a correct analysis, which is why empirical testing is still an important technique for problem solving.
I remember a long time ago I was watching an online forum on riddles. One of the 'riddles' was how many cigarettes (read as: finite regular cylinders) can you arrange such that each one is touching each other one. I watched the thread go for three days as various theorists claim a maximum number according to mathematical theorem A or B or C. It started out with a max number of 3 and took three days of impassioned debate to work up to 6, with theories floating in and out of favour - and each one claiming to be 'the absolute ceiling limit'.
I then took a matchbox down the pub and asked the same task of my drunk friends (telling them to ignore the bulbous heads/square cross-section). Within five minutes, all of them, even the utterly non-scientific ones, had found a solution for six. Most of them found it within 1-2 minutes. Drunk, untrained, undiscplined folks that actually physically played with the items beat out impassioned, educated enthusiasts.
It highlighted the issue for me that theory is all well and good, but it's not useful in a vacuum. Theory and practice need each other to be efficient.
Similarly I went back to visit my old university. I saw a guy there 12 years into his PhD... and still clueless about the practicalities of what he was recording. He'd spent his whole career in the theory of it and had no idea of the realities of recording his subject, something that 3-6 months in industry would have given him in spades.
So no, it's not as clear cut as 'theory done cleanly in practice would win', as the real world is grubbier and has more edge cases. Theory and practice need each other for efficiency. Thinking of it another way - you don't need to test your backups... in theory... :)
Incidentally, on the cigarette question, I've seen a solution for 7, but I don't know of any higher. The guy who showed the solution for 7 was also the first one to say 'this is a solution, but there may be a higher ceiling out there'.