> They aren't going to turn their noses up at the only grants they are competitive for.

They would if it doesn't make them competitive when it comes time for tenure review. Reproducing research doesn't get one tenure, so accepting such grants would mean tacitly admitting you should also start looking for a new position in a couple years when you go up for review. That's why I said we need an realignment of incentives across academia in addition to these grants, which would give a career path to people. Maybe it's worth it to create positions for people who just reproduce others' research, I don't know.