> I believe the thinking is: "This is a great filter to ensure we only get great and passionate people!"

Assume this were true. Even if this were the case, this might backfire: "passionate" easily works against a company.

This means that if you filter for passionate people, but reject such passionate candidates, these candidates might passionately work against your company (e.g. tell every friend what a shithole of a company this is etc.).

So, filtering for passionate people in the hiring process (even if it worked) is in my opinion dangerous idea.