this is how I look at it.

If you have a .480" intake lift camshaft in, say a 265, it will be radical because thats a lot of lift for a small amount of cubes. But if you took that same .480" lift cam and put it in a 406 small block that .480" is nothing. If you have ever taken a look at some big block cams, the lift on them can be way radical. I've seen street driven big blocks with .600"-.750" lift.

So I guess if you look at the lift on the camshaft, more cubes would let you have more lift, because when you increase the size of the motor, you also increase the size of everything else. Make sense?