As someone who has successfully obtained various grants, I wouldn't say they are a waste of time, but I agree that it's essentially a reviewer lottery among the good to excellent applications. At least that's the case in the humanities where evaluation is more subjective anyway. I've had more or less the same application fail miserably in one call and succeed immediately in another, for instance.
The problem with grants is that each one of them has their own evaluation criteria, panels, and overall decision structure, so what works for one type of grant is useless with another. That makes writing them so time consuming.
The problem with grants is that each one of them has their own evaluation criteria, panels, and overall decision structure, so what works for one type of grant is useless with another. That makes writing them so time consuming.