I think it's more that the "inversion" interview story became a bit of a hot topic, and so is something people tend to reference in these discussions. Not that it's a specific problem people think is great to ask in interviews.

It also seems to neatly split people into camps who think "this is trivial, and totally reasonable to expect somebody to answer, even if it's a little contrived", vs those who think "this is not practical, and you'd only know the answer if you'd already practiced it, so it's not fair to ask".

> It eliminates competent, skilled people who don't have the time to memorize the latest cargo cult trends in hiring

But given that you already acknowledged that it's pretty trivial, why would memorization be necessary for a competant person?