As a frequent interviewer I will say that you are not alone in that: any interviewer that isn't following the above guidelines is unlikely to get a good signal

As a frequent interviewer I will say that you are not alone in that: any interviewer that isn't following the above guidelines is unlikely to get a good signal from anyone. To your final point about expectations: One question that we try to ask ourselves about any particular interview question is "how may bits of information are we getting out of this?" Trivia questions are usually less than 1 - you'll find out if they know some trivia, but you don't honestly really even care. The best questions are those that get you several bits over the course of the interview period, rather than a single yes/no answer at the end. Questions where there is no final end point or where we explicitly do not expect candidates to finish, are often the most effective; we can explore the pathways that are working, dive into side channels that seem interesting, and get data along the way rather than just a checkmark on some individually-useless problem.