The hub that ranks adds genuine value and serves a real intent, while the one that gets ignored is a thin link-dump with no gain. The difference is not the hub format, since both pages can look almost identical in structure. What separates them is the organizing work layered on the links and whether the page satisfies a navigational or overview intent that searchers actually have. Treating all hub pages as equivalent is the mistake, observed behavior is that two pages with the same layout rank very differently based on that added value.
The ranking hub does work the destination pages cannot. It organizes a topic so a reader grasps its shape quickly, it curates rather than lists everything, it adds context that explains what each resource offers and to whom, and it matches a real demand, the desire to see the landscape and choose where to go. That combination gives the page information gain over its links and makes it the best answer to an overview or navigational query. Google can see that searchers who land on it are satisfied, and the page holds its position because it serves a genuine need.
The ignored hub skips all of that. It stacks links with no curation logic, no descriptions, no overview, and no clear intent it is built to serve, so it offers nothing a searcher could not get from the results page or the destinations directly. With no information gain and no real demand matched, it has no reason to rank, and Google has no reason to surface it. The page is not penalized so much as passed over, because nothing about it earns a place ahead of the pages it merely points to.
So when a hub of yours is ignored, do not assume the format is the problem, look at the value and the intent. Ask what a searcher would want from a page like this and whether yours delivers it: a real overview, curation, context, and a navigational service worth landing on. Build that in, aim the page at an intent people actually search, and the same hub format that was being ignored can start to rank.