I think this would be really fun to play, however there are a few things that need to be resolved,
you already mentioned the Item limet tf2 has, Removing Cosmetics is a first but other things need to be solved as well.
Tf2 has an item limet off 2048, if the server has to register more then this number, it crashes.
The following things effect the item limet:
- Players <1s>
- face animations <1s>
- taunts (with objects added to them, for example the engineer playing the banjo)
- Death drops (item box, weapon and the ragdoll all take up a lot) <1s per drop>
- Rockets,Stickies,Pipes,flares (bascially any projectile) <1s per projectile)
- Sentry's/Buildings (1s per building)
- The Cart (1s when pushed)
- Weapons (every player has 3 weapons, if they die they will also drop 1 weapon, also they drop an ammo box, which is another slot) <1s pw>
- Doors (if a door is triggered, the server has to update it) <1s when triggered>
- The map itself (for example badwater takes 20 slots due to certain objects and upward takes 52) <depends on map>
i am also pretty sure the plugin to remove cosmetics does this when they player spawns in, This means that for 1 frame the player will still have its cosmetics (aka 3-4 item slots that will be used). if a lot of players respawn at the same time a lot of ammo boxes+weapons will be lying around and the server will have to reserve 7 items for a frame for each player who is respawning.
there are probably more issues i have not mentioned yet, but there is nothing unsolvable. its a fun concept i would love to see but a lot of effort would have to be put in
and with the waiting for panda casual i doubt that this project will be put in action