Because then the candidate will be upset when you lowball them because they're not as strong or experienced as your range max merits.

And you won't feel the same when someone picks a number?

That seems to be the going theory in these circles, yes. If there were no initial expectations then the candidate can't feel low-balled.

Might be a way to filter out the Perpetually Angry Engineers...

I think that question applies equally to both parties.

No it doesn’t. The company is fundamentally in a much better negotiating position (they have much more data on salaries) and carry way less risk than the employee (a company has many employees, each employee has just one job).

I see this kind of argument a lot, and I don't think it's valid in general. People confuse "big" with "having power over me", or something.

In this case, obviously a job seeker does have many possible employers to apply to.

In each negotiation about a position, the company is negotiating only about one of its many positions; the candidate[1] about what will (usually) be their only job. And companies usually, AFAIK, get a lot more applications[1] per position than each applicant[1] gets offers per job search.

So no, AFAICS you are wrong and the original thesis of "the company holds the advantage" is correct.

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[1]: Consider the connotations of those words.