Sorry to seem confrontational, but "The way they find, identify, and solve problems is very impressive." creates questions. finding, identifying, and solving problems is in no way a individual skill or secret to success/formula for balancing/fixing gameplay/ui. It's a goal that requires resources, like time and money, and if TF2 team sees the monetary advantages in paying people to "find, identify, and solve problems" they will do so for the sole interest in lining their pockets, this is business. No one would have had the lunch with you, if it weren't to increase your pockets, and theirs.
As it stands you're a man with a vested interest in the success and hype of this next update and you did nothing but tell us you had lunch and that you wont tell us anything else.
Not that I agree, but this is the exact type of awful communication that people in the community are harping over.
If you and b4nny go to HQ to discuss issues, and you and him don't act as ambassadors for our gameplay options, you're only there for self interests.
I don't necessarily want a response, and quite frankly I don't think this post warrants one. I think you should read, and feel disgusted to even make such a lousy post that quite frankly reads: (tl:dr) "yeah so me and b4nny make our money from TF2, and I hope you can grip onto these words long enough to stick around, buy a competitive 'operation' pass when it comes out, and support this amazing game and all of it's skins and hats"
Show us you care, and how about we start with the illogical decision that stands about viewmodels and how we will have to have them enabled in MM. How about you talk about one damn bad Idea that they had, because we all know they have one or two, instead of feeding us the, "it was great time, many sandwich but my lips are sealed, oh and the way they approach issues is totally cool"
You could have put your entire post in under 144 characters.
"I went to valve and had lunch! We talked about their brainstorming and problem solving process! Very inspirational!"
And hell you got another 25 characters to make a nice long 8=======================D
EDIT: Full confrontation.
EDIT 2: Downfrags are cool, as long as they dont censor content. I'm perplexed by the psychology that is behind perturbed virgins that disagree with what I say then subsequently use a Downfrag to show it rather than typing out a well worded response and how I'm incorrect.