In all honesty, that's not just a government thing or just a US thing. It just seems to be the nature of RFPs everywhere. The bit I found hilarious in the GP message was not the idea of tailoring RFPs to a single company, but that this company would also get paid for the RFP writing stage. In the private sector it seems to be expected that the vendor has the decency to do at least that part for free :-)
(The first time I was involved in writing an RFP for our own product, we kept on cringing as we piled more and more obscure features of the system into it. Anything that had any practical use at all was fair game. And in the end we were congratulated by the customer for how neutral and fair we'd made the RFP look like. I still boggle at the thought of what the unfairly restricted version would have looked like.)
Nothings free. I think if the RFP writing is free - the project is likely common enough that other projects serve as a template for the bid. If the project requires unique design & analysis to bid correctly, then the cost has to be built into the overall operating cost of the company - either by charging for the RFP work, or folding into the project execution profits or at risk as a future template for other bids.
The worst case is if the project is truly one-of-a-kind not-repeatable not-transferrable. That's why the US gov't pays qualified defense contractors for some projects at the rfp stage. e.g. the last fighter contract paid for full flying prototypes from two final competitors.
(The first time I was involved in writing an RFP for our own product, we kept on cringing as we piled more and more obscure features of the system into it. Anything that had any practical use at all was fair game. And in the end we were congratulated by the customer for how neutral and fair we'd made the RFP look like. I still boggle at the thought of what the unfairly restricted version would have looked like.)