How do you get high-end editorial link placements?

How are people actually getting the roughly $1,000–$2,000 placements on legitimate editorial sites?

I've already done the mid-tier link building, niche edits, guest posting, HARO-style outreach, etc. Now I'm trying to land a few genuinely strong editorial placements on real publications, and I'm getting no responses.

Are most companies hiring fancy PR/link building agencies? Or is there a reliable way to do this in-house?