My only issue with VAC and Valve’s policy on dealing with cheaters isn’t that their anti-cheat isn’t good; it’s that even when a player is flagged for using cheats, it doesn’t instantly remove them. It waits, sometimes months after flagging them before it actually doles out punishment.
Their reasoning is that it slows down new cheats being made; but what the hell does that matter if the existing cheats it flags are still allowed to be used for months at a time?
That said, it’s rare I encounter cheaters in CS. Plenty of other games I play where there are constant, obvious cheaters that aren’t even being detected by the anti-cheats in use, since they ban instantly on detection.