Yes, other corps are less punishing than the Big A. But that doesn't mean you can walk into a corporate office with a chainsaw and leave pieces of bodies all over the place and not expect a drekstorm to land directly on your head. Again, it isn't even the number of bodies, really. Twenty guards dead or hospitalized from bullet wounds will not make you any friends in the corp, but seven butchered corpses splattered in the hall will get you a far better chance of meeting a corporate hit squad. They might even hire other runners to take you out, make it look like 'gang violence', if they need to be hands off about it.
Bullet holes (assuming you avoid putting them in noncombatants) are business as usual. Chainsaws and monowhips bring more heat than guns because when you leave bodies in pieces, that's making a statement. Make a statement means that people are more likely to make one in return, and use you as an example of why making statements is a Bad Idea. Is it an instant death sentence? No, especially if that's a one-off. You start doing that often, though, and your jobs will trend towards the more hazardous, the contacts who don't want to be associated with 'that crazy fragger who cuts people up all the time' will stop taking your calls, and you're going to find corp hit squads are a more frequent part of your life.
It is A way to play, yes. And if that's what you want to do, go for it. But don't pretend that going Texas Chainsaw Massacre on Ares property is a way towards a long and profitable life.