How do people have cosmetics in the normal quality???

[TwoShoes]

Is this a server plugin? I see people holding normal non stock weapons and wearing unusual hats with white names, are these just fake hats and weapons?

 

[Xerʘ]

It's the !items command.

 

[TwoShoes]

oh thats neat, no idea how they get away with it though I thought valve hated that kinda stuff

 

[KinCryos]

they hated it when Quickplay was a thing but their Casual/Competitive system only connects to their servers now

 

[Bottiger]

Some other servers have been using it for years now. I emailed several people at Valve. None of them replied after several months, so I took that as a sign that it is allowed now.

It is only explicitly disallowed in quickplay which doesn't exist anymore.