[Drunken F00l]

Spamming one team can get you stuck on the character selection screen or "dead spectator" as you called it. It's understandable if you want to play on a team with friends/clan members but try not to just spam the key when selecting.

This would explain why I've never had the problem and why it appeared after Valve's "rate limit of some commands" patch.

Some people have noticed the "Stuck in respawn" occurs when you have something else open such as Steam friends or the scoreboard as you die.

I've noticed this one. Scoreboard, team chat, regular chat, steam windows open while dead, etc. seem to make it happen (but not all the time?).