JHU spends about $2 billion dollars per year on research. Duke spends over $1B (as several state universities do). The LACs with the highest activity, like Wesleyan, spend about $10M (or less) per year on research. So the scale at least is different (in keeping with the different institutional missions).
Don’t get me wrong, I love LACs. The quality & quantity of student-faculty engagement, including mentoring on research projects, may well be better at some LACs than at some top research universities. Nevertheless I do think national universities have a comparative advantage w.r.t. the scale and impact of cutting-edge STEM research projects. This may be an important consideration in college selection for some advanced students, in some STEM fields.