What the lobbyists are complaining about is that 18F doesn't have to go through that process while everyone else does. OR more specifically, they believe that 18F is skipping the process but they don't know because of lack of transparency.
They want the playing field to be even -- either make 18F follow all the same rules or allow them to skirt the same rules.
Part of the reason those government contracts are worth so much is because of all the forms and paperwork you have to file just to get one.
So the issue isn't as black and white as all of us engineers want it to be.
Honestly, I'm all in favor of dropping all the regs for the contractors, but the downside to that is that the regs were put into place to stop corruption -- i.e all the contracts were just going to the (typically white rich male) friends of the government agents. A lot of those government regulations are there to make sure that women and minority owned businesses get some of those contracts (although there is a ton of corruption around pass through entities there, but that's a different issue).