Ok so STOP playing casual, everything you see in this game mode is wrong and will only make you do stupid stuff. Play some death match to learn the guns. The main guns you want to learn are the M4A1/A4 and the AK47 (pls don't use AWP on Dm until you may have decided to become an AWP'er).
Assault.....erm, no one plays that map...unless they are insane
colour me peculiar.
I'll focus on deathmatch then - I'd been trying to learn the weapons and revised maps as well as the player models without upsetting the established players too much.
Going back to the sound discussion - I seem to be able to hear footsteps from miles away. I can crouch in one place, track their direction through the walls and wait for people to run in to me. I'm aware that people should be walking so the don't give their position away but the default footstep sound seems a bit high to me!
I still find it crazy that I can hear long doors from short. It just seems strange, but giving where they are on the map, it probably makes sense.
The vertical sound is garbage in CSGO.
I find it how impressive how they've managed to make the sound worse from 1.6/Source.