But I come up with all my clever abstract algorithms in the shower - usually while I am thinking of something else. I don't think being "clever" on demand is the mark of a good developer. I would prefer they look at some of my available open source code - that gives a much better reflection of my abilities.
The problem is the author went to school too many years ago and missed the ubiquitous "how to take standardized tests" curriculum.
These days kids are taught from kindergarten on how to take standardized tests. My sixth grader can look at a test question and narrow it down to two answers before even reading the question. And for math, he doesn't solve the problem, he plugs the two answers in to see which is right.
I teach math at a community college and it is common to have students test into math classes that they don't have the basic prerequisites for - just because they test well.
I hate that it now takes two clicks to get to Content->Overview when it use to take one. I mostly look at the overview pages to see where people are coming from and what pages they are looking at and it seems like a lot more clicking and scrolling is involved to see what I want to see.