Do you get the impression this is a cause for concern for qualified applicants? Rephrased: what sort of applications are now getting denied/RFE'd that would have been fine say a couple years ago?

Anecdotes would suggest that a lot of people were able to get these visas because there was some fairly loose interpretation of the criteria.

I'm particularly interested in EB1A.

EB1As are extremely difficult to get right now. This is particularly true for non-scientific/research/academic employees who are not very highly compensated.