I agree with @hmitsch comment. Title frames this in a negative way, and I quiet fail to understand what are we trying to improve here.
I see most items are now clarified. About budget and swag, with the new community portal and its ability to visualize groups activity, we intend to improve the proccess so also non-Reps can initiate a request (note that until we launch the portal we won’t be able to start working on the details).
About Reps channels, in concrete Telegram which is the only invite-only, since nda info is not discussed, the requirement to access it might change in the future if we need to.
I’m summary, Reps don’t have more or less tools than other mozillians, just the right one to empower communities.
Cheers.