Maps. They need to be tougher, for competitions at least.
I remember old platformer games, where you had to jump through levels filled with obstacles, traps, pits, moving platforms, holes in the walls shooting balls of fire, etc, etc. Some games were really tough, you had to move your character with pixel precision and time your moves up to milliseconds. One tiny mistake and you're dead. Some levels took 200-300 attempts to beat.
QuakeLive competitive duel maps should be like that. They should look like staggering contraptions, mind-boggling labyrinths of hell, filled with dangerous traps and intricate architecture. They should require defrag-class movement techniques and inhuman precision to traverse through them. There should be all sorts of usual obstacles - lava pits, spikes, moving walls that squash you, floating platforms, etc, and it all should be done in an amazing 3D design, using vertical dimension to the full extent. The levels should seem absolutely freakin' impossible. It should take hundreds of attempts by a typical QL player just to learn how to, for example, get from MH to RA without falling down. And of course, all movement mistakes should be punished by nothing other than death.
And then there will be REAL pro players, players who learned every inch of those maps, who practiced their movement to the absolute perfection, and who could sustain moving through those wild mazes for the whole duration of duel matches, without making a single mistake, without missing a single jump. And then imagine battles between such pros, who jump with insane speed and incredible ease through absolutely impossible mess of ledges and platforms, moving in cryptic trajectories, with balls of fire flying around, and dangerous pits of lava below, firing at each other and dodging each other's shots, collecting items and at the same time playing a deep strategic game in their minds. It will be absolutely unbelievable experience to watch.
Show that on big screen for big audience, like IEM at Cebit or Gamescom, and spectators will drop their jaws and stare in amazement, unable to move. Then they will see Starcraft II with its tiny boring units crawling slowly around flat map, and they will scream "FUCK THIS SHIT, GIVE US QUAKE LIVE!!!!".