There is no evidence they applied rules selectively. What I meant by inconsistent process is that it's subjective. These process usually say something like "Two

There is no evidence they applied rules selectively. What I meant by inconsistent process is that it's subjective. These process usually say something like "Two L6+ need to approve...". Then it's assigned to someone and that person can spend 2 minutes or 2 hours on it. Paper reviews are esp prone to that. How likely your paper being accepted is often more of a factor of who reviews it than how good the paper is. The main thing for me is that it was clear the paper would have been published eventually. I've seen it many times - reviewers ask for some changes. Authors make the changes, Reviews are happy. Paper is published. The reviewers didn't ask for anything that would make the paper weaker, nor did they ask to remove any content. I'm guessing she was so mad because they were external people on the paper and pulling the paper out would make her look bad.