I seem to recall around the time when the Branch Davidians were not so successful in holding off the Feds a Saturday Night Live news report comparing the Branch Davidians to the Mormons. The commentator was basically making a humorous distinction between religion and cult as whether or not a religious group can hold off the Feds.
I wish I can remember which exactly cast member made that comment, though I think it was Dennis Miller.
Anyway, I think the staff report got the answer more or less right, that it’s based largely on perspective and perception, and that the word “cult” does seem to have a negative connotation. I will add one more point to the conversation, which is that the role of faith factors into pretty much every religion, and I’d even suggest there’s an element of faith in the sciences, too (i.e. belief that the trajectory of scientific findings is correct and the unanswered questions have answers, even if we don’t know them, etc.). We tend to labels things as “religion” mostly due to the faith-elements. I think we also label religions more as “cults” if we have a harder time understanding how someone can buy into the details of a faith. Some people probably think of all religions as cults since they cannot understand faith and do not recognize how they themselves probably accept many things “on faith”.