By the way, I'm one of those people whose grants you turned down (well, I don't know if it was your study section). After several attempts at getting R01s with smart new ideas and receiving no feedback and no scores, and seeing the same proposals being funded a few years later for more experienced applicants, I reasoned that I could get more done in industry.

I left for Google, and got more done in 20% time (research-wise) than I ever did using 100% time in academia.

When I did sit on study sections, I worked hard to help NIH understsand why the older groups asking for closet clusters on a cloud grant weren't helping. But NIH is very slow to move- it took at least 7 years to get to the point where people could even apply for cloud credits instead of closet clusters.