Do you suspect it's primarily the 'prestige' that was missing or the analysis (or maybe even something like layout), which made the initial paper submissions fail?
If papers are rejected purely on prestige rather than merit that would be quite sad.
If papers are rejected purely on prestige rather than merit that would be quite sad.
It is extremely hard to believe that the submission was not accepted BECAUSE of the lack of university affiliation.
But what is indeed true is that different conferences/journals have different expectations from a submission. Some prefer more theoretical analysis, others more computational work and benchmarking. And this is where a seasoned Professor offers value. They can judge where to submit a paper and have a high probability of success.