Very unapologetic opinion on science funding ! Mostly agree ! The situation is more dire in some countries than others, take Turkey for example. A common complaint I heard from researchers trying to do solid work is that their grant being rejected and the main reason is feasibility !

I think a strategy similar to some commercial research labs like Bell labs in the 1960s could be better. They used to just give funding to some scientists and let them do their work, be it engineering related with feasibility or basic research.

People have suggested similar funding scheme: lottery-like, give funding to random scientists without considering the exact project. The main idea is the fact that research output (?) is proportional to allocated funding. Besides, there are studies that showed more breakthrough research comes from small and typically less-funded groups.

So it seems random allocation of grants is a reasonable approach.