nuzeI feel like we might be remembering pre nerf stickies incorrectly.. yeah I agree that demo isn't great online and it felt better before, but have you guys watched demos of good demomen play pre nerf? Old stickies are STUPIDLY strong in comparison to current ones.
It's all theory and I find it unlikely that it would ever be changed back (demo feels balanced on lan to me) but with the way the current playerbase is very mechanics heavy, I feel like we would quickly see people get very mad at demo being overpowered to play against.
Old pipe splash radius is a change I could definitely get behind though.
Old Demos were putting up 300 DPM in Open minimum during their first season cause they could big dick entire teams through a choke or just pad damage. The current stickies are roughly as good as they used to be for mids/team fights, but you don't get free damage numbers by spamming at chokes. Badlands choke used to be completely uninhabitable if you didnt have a heal beam cause the blast was so easy to manage
which isn't really a strong defense or attack on the balance of the SBL now, cause there's pros and cons to how TF2 is played now compared to 5 years ago. If you want to simulate the old days tho, play a pug and every time a Demo gets you to 60 health hit yr suicide