I've raised this before with some leagues, and will reiterate it again. There's nothing surprising in Sal's post at all-- this is precisely what should be expected to get more support for TF2 and staying with the spirit of the game.

If any Highlander league needs a sponsor to run a season with an empty ban list (i.e. not even item sets banned by default) using a pick/ban system, I'm willing to donate hundreds of dollars in cash (or item) prizes to support this new way forward for competitive TF2.

Let's just get it going-- while useful for experimenting, I think pugs and IRC are the wrong route to get the kind of feedback we need to move forward. I'd like to see a competitive league season or round robin tournament using this model. Let's gather some feedback in an organized fashion rather than ask Valve to try to squeeze it out of forum threads, etc.