I agree.

Background: There are many faculty who have given up on even trying for NSF. I know this from my own department (a top 20% engineering research department) where there are several very capable faculty of 20+ years post PhD experience each who do not even bother to write NSF proposals anymore. Why? because they are tired of being the "papers on the the cutting floor", the 85% who spend months writing proposals that go nowhere.

The interesting thing is that those who gets the constant grants from NSF are not noticeaby better in research. I say this as a department chair, who has seen the output of everyone, and can compare objectively.

However, the faculty who do not get NSF funding tend to be better in teaching - perhaps because they have more time to devote, and are not constantly chasing their tails to raise $$.

Small grants - even less than 100k - would give such faculty a boost of confidence. Even enough money to allow them to travel to conferences, to get a decent PC, would make a difference.

You might say such trivial amounts should come from the university. but the fact is that those who generate the "big bucks" suck up all the small blobs of money - through overhead returns (kickbacks IMO) etc.