Best advice I can give is to submit multiple redundant applications. Remember that these are not papers. Self-plagiarize like crazy, copy and paste whole sections from one application to another. Its a lot easier to change the format and submit the same grant to 3-4 different sources than to keep rewriting new ones. If you are in a position where you "really" should be getting NIH/NSF grants, you can always submit elsewhere concurrent with the second submission. Persistence pays off.
The new NIH scoring system is a train wreck, particularly in combination with the current funding situation. They are encouraging reviewers to use the whole scale and all it takes is one person listening and you are basically out of the running (even if they think your application should be funded!). Unfortunately it turns it into a bit of a quantity (vs. quality) game. I know several faculty members with incredible track records (including someone who was something like 22/23 with grant applications prior to the last few years) who are now struggling because of the submission limit and poor score reliability.
