Our main news man, Allunit, got Gabe Newell to take a few minutes at his email program and talk with us quickly about TFC and TF2. We will continue to be releasing new technology, games, and content. There is one commander per team, although there will be officers as well on a team. I don't know. Since before Half-Life shipped, actually.
Ping is a pretty bad way of measuring netcode.
The better measure of netcode is how well does it play for a given ping. I'd refer you to CliffE's and Minh's comments about the netcode. We think it's the best available at this point. Contact us for more information on GameSpy Industries.