i really like your "how well do we collaborate" assessment method and the underlying advice of treating people meaningfully. teamwork is so important to satisfaction, achievement, and even a feeling of responsibility.

that isn't necessarily at odds with assessing technical ability via tests, of course. in a perfect world, we'd be able to tease out both great technical ability and great interpersonal skills. it sounds to me like our original ranter disagreed with the scope and focus of the test--timed cleverness and ingenuity in an esoteric problem space. that kind of ingenuity is often helpful but not often required for many technical jobs.