It's nothing to do with the standard I believe

The same cables and adapters all worked when I used them on my nuc for the same devices, and they wouldn't even work with my mouse on the Mac studio.

My suspicion is that the shell of the case is a bit thick (as the port is recessed behind it), so some cables just failed to touch fully. As, some cables felt more snug and clicked into the port better

For the cost of the computer, it damned sure shouldn't have that issue

Even worse, for the price of the computer, the power button should be on front, not buried on the back. That's overcomplicating things for the sake of doing so