I'm late to the VShojo discussion, but I'm going to say my take anyway.
I feel like the whole "VShojo only hire established creator and/or their close friends" argument was indirectly caused by their own fans. Back in the days, many VShojo fans (and some of the talents too) were very rabid in preaching about how superior the VShojo model (talents retain their IP, etc) is compared to the other agencies, and how that should be the "standard" for all the agencies moving forward. So the main counter-argument against that point, is that their model only works because they only hire friends and/or already-popular creators, they wouldn't willing to risk it on some random 2views indies.
Many indies and their fans, especially those who were already anti-corpo, also worship the hell out of VShojo, claiming they are the "savior of indies" or something of that sort. The irony is that if you are a random 2view indie, you actually have a higher chance of getting into Holo, Niji, or any of the more traditional agencies, assuming if you actually have the talent.
As for me, up until they announced their second audition, I was hoping they would just embrace their status of "elite friend group", just straight-out double down on it.