I renamed the addons folder, restarted the server, recorded stv via rcon and jumped around on a map for a few minutes. killing myself and switched teams a few times. I booted up the demo with the advanced spectator plugin and the glow still wasn't persistent. to make sure the advanced spectator plugin isn't at fault I downloaded a fresh esea demo and the glow was persistent on that so yeah, it's not any plugin. must be something in the server cfg. I've uploaded it for you guys to take a look at: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/60781878/big_boys_cfg.rar
To test if disabling addons minimizes the demo file size I will have to wait until a scrim day or if tf2lobby starts working.