Some thoughts:
- The people who refuse to play anything but 24/7 "offclasses" aren't going to change. They're not going to play a game type where their classes are less effective than highlander. Let them have their pudding, it's fine! It's just like how people who want to play 24/7 pocket soldier aren't going to play highlander, because if their enemies are any good they're going to start getting shat on for being out of role.
- People who aren't into esports at all are probably our biggest potential spectator base. Like someone already said, we're the closest video game analog to sports like hockey and basketball. The main difference is that they can re-watch highlights right after they happen, because there are "pauses" so often. Why don't casters start to take advantage of that idea? Because the technology is so difficult. TF2 can't run backwards, and going back to an earlier point in a demo spontaneously needs the match to be reloaded and then fast forwarded. Having two cameramen run at the same time, one on a more delayed relay, and switching to the delayed cameraman to rewatch a highlight -- that's also fucking complicated, and I'm not sure if it's even possible. If we can get things like this (and that plugin that shows player highlights through walls is fucking great for this) that make the game simpler/more normal to watch when it's casted, it'll be great. Stop cycling through players one at a time, that's one of the #1 things that turns people who aren't into FPSs off from spectating them!
- Yes, getting pubs who aren't stubborn into comp in general is a good idea. Don't force feed them things like the cookie cutter setup, because when people are told what and how to do something about a game they just want to play to have fun they lock up from feedback. Lay it out to them, like: This is what the pros do! This is why the game type is set up with these classlimits and why we play on these maps! Have fun, and don't fuck up your configs! They'll figure out how to play at their skill level if they have any dedication at all, and if they won't then do you really think that force feeding them "true" 6s would have worked anyway?
- The game itself is already amazing at competitive play, we all know that. People keep suggesting things like bunnyhopping, "tiny" (read: massive) balance changes, alternative rulesets; none of that matters, all you're doing when you go on about that stuff is shedding bikes. Who cares about trivial things? People who are really into the game! Who doesn't? People we want to get into the scene! We don't need to change how the game is played to attract people, we need to be attractive to attract people. The more popular the competitions, the more normal players care about comp, the more competitive PUGs are played, the closer we get to where we want to be. Deal with the little things that get people involved in the first place, stop taking the supposed effects of game changes into brand new contexts.
- Can we get some more people casting random matches? IRC PUGs, inhouse PUGs, scrims, whatever. Right now it's like: every time there's a major cast, it's an event of itself, but I don't remember the last time I've seen someone casting a minor game. Why would you cast a bad game, though? Because they teamplay is simpler. You don't have people doing things on the edge of the game's meta all the time, and since the game isn't meta-oriented like DotA those aren't going to attract new blood to the scene. If you get Open/IM casts running at random times on random days, and you get exposure to each one as it's going on wherever on the internet (even if it's just a post on 4chan, or a reddit submission, or getting a link posted in some IRC channel where the peeps aren't pricks) you're going to get more people aware of the game and the next time they hear of it they'll mentally process the idea "Someone's shoutcasting TF2"