Most recently Valve punished players who have been using external idling programs to win hats.
They deleted all the ill-earned items, of course I lost plenty. They rewarded the good players who didn't "cheat" with these new halo hats. Personally, I think the appeal of hats is that they make you look unique. If 95% of the population has these halo hats, as Valve claims they do, I don't really want one. (They look ugly on most models, no I'm not just jealous they look great on Pyro and I don't have any hats.)
Another thing, I idled 24/7 for weeks and never got a hat. Valve claimed they could be earned with casual play. Crazy. If external applications are banned I plan on just leaving tf2 online to an idle server overnight anyways. Hell, I'll make my own and only give it to friends.
Luckily they increased the chance of earning hats after this ordeal. A win for everyone I think, glad I was part of the cheating which brought change.
