I absolutely see your point. At the end, we're all people and we realize what is hardship and what is not. I just believe there is a lot of "scare" in hardship cases, especially when it comes to government funding, but overall, there overall denial rate for exceptional hardship cases are not high (I think less than 5% per year the last few years). Likely, and this is just a guess, the denials come from lack of documentation and proof.
Even though I have spoken to an attorney that has said it doesn't matter if it was $1 or $1,000,000, they look at the case as government funding only - which I still have a hard time believing this is such a thing, other than to cause fear to get one's business. Maybe they tread more carefully if the funding is more than tens of thousands of dollars, but it wouldn't make any sense to harm their citizen over a few dollars or thousands of dollars (as long as their is legitimate exceptional hardship).
At the end of the day, the US government is here to protect its citizens and their well being - if all documentation is given for proof, there is no reason for a denial.