So, you're right. I started wiht a quota of 1 gpu and can make an instance, but if I request more quota it's immediately turned down (no human involved, afaict). It just says to contact your sales rep. I wasn't aware (wasn't the case when I worked there) they autoreject GPU quota increases.
Be less quick to "fact check" anything that disagrees with the conventional wisdom.
Anyway, I checked and AWS does the same thing now, too. In fact, AWS took 12 hours to respond (rather than decline immediately), and then said they'd think about it, without a real no.
I checked in on this and they are new controls (new since I last evaluated the cloud using a hobby account) due to miners. ANd the message makes it clear- if you want to proceed, talk to a human. I don't like that but it's the same way it works for my work account.