There are certainly people on these forums who have obtained citizenship after fulfilling only the minimum stay requirements. Lawyers also report many cases of the same for their clients.
See for example this sub:
On the question of “ties”, the understanding on here is that there is no longer any legal requirement to show a “connection” other than the ARI-based residence and the language requirement. See some discussion here:
If your second agency has evidence of someone having been declined citizenship due to lack of connection, this would be valuable info, including whether this person challenged that decision in the courts.
This applies to adults; the situation for minors is more complicated.