This is taboo to say explicitly of course, one must say that it's all internal passion, but people, whether they admit it or not, will have to strive for these things. If they don't, they fall behind.

This goes way way deeper than grants. It's not even just human nature, but a fundamental property of life. The same is true in dating. You have to present yourself in the best possible way, and those who do have better success.

It's not enough that you and your ideas are good, you have to be able to convince people that you are worth investing in.

You can't forbid people to associate, to form cliques, to keep tabs on who is good and who isn't (and the same for departments and universities) etc, to invite each other to work together.

A grant that led to a sexy result will be considered money better spent, than something that leads to no presentable conclusions.

And beyond the gaming, there are genuine differences in how good a research vision some people have. Top, visionary people vs mediocre incrementalist copycats is a real distinction.