I would contend that the point of the RFP process is to make it harder to rig. That doesn't mean that the vendors themselves don't try to influence the RFP suc

I would contend that the point of the RFP process is to make it harder to rig. That doesn't mean that the vendors themselves don't try to influence the RFP such that it makes them look better, or that the people issuing the RFP don't do that themselves. But it's overly cynical and a misunderstanding of where the RFP process came from to say it's there to rig the process: it's there because the bidding process has been "rigged" since time immemorial, and it's an attempt to make things more transparent and harder to rig. It's certainly not totally successful at that, but it's unfortunately often better than the other sorts of processes people use for major contracts (like no-bid contracts, handshake deals, etc.).