Having been both a grant writer and a reviewer for NIH and NIH-alike grants, there's an element of both. Established groups definitely get a bit of a pass with

Having been both a grant writer and a reviewer for NIH and NIH-alike grants, there's an element of both. Established groups definitely get a bit of a pass with "Well, surely Professor So-and-So will sort this out" that an early career person won't. And environment does come into play in terms of whether or not a university has the ability to manage a grant, and yes, large universities basically get an auto-pass there, but it's something people talk about. But I will say that even for established people at large universities, you do have to stick the content. A ton of recent cycles have been dominated by "Hey, we do COVID research now!" from groups that never did infectious disease research before, and a lot of those got clobbered in review. But I also do my best to teach my students about the "soft factors" of academia - there are a lot, and they are, by and large, hidden. Your last point isn't lost either - I occasionally get a little bitter when I translate funding rounds on Hacker News into grant-equivalents.