My view about this as a young scientist is that established researchers tend to know each other, have a wider sphere of interaction and generally more respected in their fields as a function of longevity in service. My experience is that many reviewers tend to be too critical if a name is new in a field. Secondly, even funding bodies allocate more fundings to largely established groups which are usually run by older researchers while younger researchers with the brightest ideas usually have a really tough time to start off. For example, if you are not a PI in the UK, the research councils here may not fund you! I do not find this study to be scientifically balanced because they don't seemed to have addressed the issues that would have let to such differences.
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