Oh dear, and here I was thinking I could ease into writing editorials about TF2 on a leisurely pace, when a simple steam update suddenly creates much confusion, activity and some actual nervous breakdowns across the community 
So what happened?
The latest steam update made added some features. I do what every bloody TF2 website on this planet is doing and copy and paste the main points:
- Reworked the character loadout screens to support future features
- Added the ability for players to permanently delete items from their inventory using the new Backpack menu. This does not reset achievements. Once an item has been deleted it can never be re-earned
- Added the ability for players to reset their player stats using the Reset Stats button on the Stats menu. This does not reset achievements
Currently the new loadout screen shows an additional new slot labeled “head”. If this will be simply decorative by being able to select a personalized look or if different heads will add new features is unknown. In fact, pretty much is “unknown” at this time, but people feel encouraged to speculate wildly.
One aspect of the new loadout screen I hugely dislike is that now I need even more clicks to change weapons 
VALVE, I WANT MY EQUIP-COMMAND BACK !!!
The new backpack menu is appears to be a global collection of unlocks and an option, to irrevocably delete an item. That has created a lot of confusion, because why would somebody delete an unlock? The answer might lie that the backpack is possibly limited to 50 slots. Sounds like a lot, given that eventually 9 classes with 3 unlocks each will cover only slightly more than have that count (of course, should the new headgear also count as an item you will have 36 of the 50 slots in usage).
A lot of speculation goes towards random items/weapons which has to be found throughout maps in future games.
My personal theory is somewhat different. Since the backpack is global there could be future unlocks which are not class specific, but can be used with every class. Those items could be based on new achievements, which Valve loves so dearly. And to keep a certain limit to things the backpack would restrict a player to 50 unlocks, so when the player has reached another achievement he has to delete an existing item before he can use the new one.
There are new event descriptions found the in the “team fortress 2 content.gcf” (/nods towards ubercharged.net).
Two lines are relevant here:
"DiscardExplanation" - "You picked up this item but you don’t have room for it in your pack."
"DiscardExplanation2" - "Delete an item below to make room or press discard to throw your new item away."
These descriptions are not conclusively supporting my theory, but they don’t contradict it either. Granted, the phrasing “picked up” conjures the idea of an item lying around for a player to stumble upon it. But I imagine reaching such an object in the middle of a furious fight only to run into that kind of dialog and having to select an item to delete and so on … that doesn’t make much sense to me.
(Of course, the question is valid if not the same would happen if you’d earn the respective achievement in the middle of a fight. But I would assume that an item would remain inactive until you’d open a slot for it.)
But then again this is just some wild speculation on my part, and could be as wrong as anybody else’s idea. And actually there’s nothing wrong with that. What kind of bugs me are the people who are already drawing conclusions, making wild accusations, threatening to leave the game (though in some cases that could be an improvement) and mistaking hints and clues for facts.
So keep speculating and guessing, but stay relaxed. Don’t put forward conclusions because at that point there’s little to support them. We will see what the next update will bring. Perhaps it’s a disaster, but perhaps it’s something which will actually enrich and improve the game.
Postpone your doomsday messages until then 
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