I have got to agree with #34. Valve is only making money with TF2, if people buy their items. Why would they give everyone an option to use all items without investing either time, effort or money? It would not be fair to ask for that.
I would also like to mention that an eMail with a similar list has been sent to the TF2 development team in the name of the world's major competitive TF2 communities and - leagues (namely ESEA, ETF2L.org, VanillaTV, eXtelevision, FBTF2 (teamfortress.com.br), ozfortress, TeamFortress.TV, TF2Connexion.fr, TF2World.ru, Pixling.ru, United Gaming Clans, VanillaTF2 and Wireplay). Some of the suggestions from this list have been implemented in the recent update (such as several map bugs and the option to display the time left on the hud).
It may be obsolete to send the same list again. To be able to focus on other things that have not been mentioned before, here is the list that has been sent to the dev team in May (implemented bugfixes/features in italics):
Bugfixes:
1. With multicore support enabled, using the “Go to” function in demo playbacks causes a crash.
2. The player hitboxes do not match the player models, as demonstrated for example in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZfK6tKPYXvI. Having accurate hitboxes to know where to aim is an essential part of competitive play. Even if it can not be implemented overnight, this would be a greatly appreciated fix.
3. The spawn locations on cp_granary are imbalanced. The players on the blue team start spawning on the left side of the spawn room whereas the players on the red team occupy the right spawn positions first. Because the first midfight is an essential part of competitive play, this is a slight yet significant advantage for the red team.
4. Pausing the game with the “pause” function still messes up the game a bit. The “ice skating” effect has been fixed a while ago but now the spectator scoreboard is frozen for the tv_delay time (usually 90 seconds). Also, it would be really great to allow a player to completely connect to the server, while the game is paused, and to allow more than one line of chat during pauses.
5. The jarate (http://puu.sh/2FYG0.jpg) and bleed (http://puu.sh/2FYFM.jpg) effects under DirectX 8 cripple the player view a lot more than under DirectX 9
New features:
1. Please add the remaining match time to the hud instead of the scoreboard only. The time left is an important information for casters and spectators and we feel it should be displayed at all times, not only when the camera man opens the score board. This option could be sv_pure 0 only or classified as a cheat variable, because it is primarily needed on STV relays.
2. Please add an option to scale the opacity of weapon viewmodels. This option has been introduced by the now broken OpenPlugin and was quite popular. It would allow to have the weapon model as an aim indicator but the weapon model would not block a big portion of the screen.
3. Please raise the picmip value cap to 4. Any value higher than 2 is currently classified as cheat variable, a higher value would allow more flat textures for those players who do not want to achieve the same effect with graphic driver settings.
4. Player outlines in spectator mode or on STV relays (like CS:GO has) would be an awesome new feature. Currently, the two major streaming organisations TeamFortress.TV and VanillaTV use an unsigned plugin on non-VAC-secure STV relays to display player outlines through walls. It would be great to have an official and less dodgy version of this.
5. Please raise the maximum field of view to 110. Any values higher than 90 are currently classified as cheat variable. This is something a lot of players are wishing for and will try to circumvent over and over again. 110 degrees seems reasonable to us and is, to our knowledge, as well the maximum field of view for Occulus Rift users. To remove any imbalances for people who are using 4:3 resolutions, an aspect ratio field of view cap could also be introduced.
6. Please add cp_snakewater (http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=14835) as a community map to the Team Fortress 2 map pool. The map has been and still is extremely popular in all competitive communites for a long time and really deserves it. Map creator chojje (http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197998577229) would surely be more than happy to see this and give the map an overhaul.
7. For automatic in-eye demo recording, the competitive community use the signed client plugin “P-REC”. You can find more information on the plugin here: http://etf2l.org/faq/p-rec/
The plugin automatically records a pov demo when both teams set their status to ready and introduces some more features, like automatic deletion of a recorded demo, kill streak counters and automatic screenshots of the status console and the scoreboard (both are usually needed to submit results for any matches in cups and leagues).
The problem with this plugin is that it occasionally breaks on TF2 updates (it is not working under Steam Pipe, for example) and the developer has long left the TF2 community. An official option of the mentioned features would be a great asset to any competitive player.
8. For major Team Fortress 2 events (such as league finals), we would love to see more help with the promotion from Valve. The short blogposts on the teamfortress.com blog are already a help but we feel that front page posts on the teamfortress.com blog rather than posts in a sub section (which happened last August for the first ever international Team Fortress 2 LAN at insomnia 46 in the UK), ingame notifications/news or stickied SPUF threads would be an even greater help and would still require little effort from your side.
9. Improve the default setup for TF2. Turn on hit sounds, damage numbers, and auto-reload. All 3 things would drastically help newer players. Sadly many don’t realize these choices are available.
10. Add a quickplay option for “advanced” pub servers that have removed the random aspects of gameplay - no random crits, no damage spread, no weapon spread. Would be at least a small step towards putting competitive play in the spotlight.