Thanks for the post.
Difficulty is different from impossibility
Anyone applying to PhD Economics programs knows that NO ONE can be sure of admission even if you have a 4.5 GPA (on a 4.0 scale), perfect GRE scores and a paper in the AER and QJE.
What I am reading on this forum is not people stressing "difficulty", but people stressing "impossibility" and worse doing so with condescension, dismissiveness and elitism.
As I said previously, if indeed it is "impossible", for non top 10(30) applicants to get into top 10 (30) programs, then adcomms should clearly inform everyone up front - otherwise they are engaging in fraud by accepting the applications and the application fees.