First I do want to answer Mitch’s statement about the 16,000 start: that’s the new CAL standard. Everyone starts at 16,000 to start with. I don’t like it but meh.
Now to Dice:
Nothing was regulated. The CS servers weren’t VAC secured but the TF2 ones were. EASY hacks could’ve been slipped in, they don’t have to be extremely obvious for someone to use. A simple hack could be just that it aligns the crosshair onto the body or onto the head upon moving the mouse curser close to the body. Most of the teams had EVERYONE sitting next to each other and ghosting was quite prevalent amongst their teammates and peers, I noticed one guy looking across and at another monitor and then typing in their team-chat where the other team was going. Unless the environment is set and the surroundings are set to prevent ghosting then team-based gameplay is TERRIBLE for lans. If both teams were paired up against each other and no one could see the screens of the other teams, etc, then it would’ve been much better. Ghosting WAS involved HEAVILY amongst the top contending teams and I wouldn’t be surprised if more was involved as well, especially when I watched them do absolutely terrible during the warm-up and then when they switched to 1.6.