[Fomite]

Basically, the granting organization doesn't want to pay for the full cost of capital equipment that will - either via time or capacity - not be fully used for that grant.

There are other grant mechanisms for large capital expenditures.

The problem is the thresholds haven't shifted in a long time, so you can easily trigger it with a nice workstation. But then, the budget for a modular NIH R01 was set in 1999, so thats hardly a unique problem.