What is the point of pushing people out of their comfort zone? Practical software engineering doesn't happen when you're uncomfortable. Discovering quality solutions requires concentration and immersion into problems.
I had a guy freak out walking through a simple algorithm in java at the white board in an interview. Maybe he was the best developer ever if he were put in a quiet dark room and never made eye contact with anyone. Given that we had other candidates who could actually interact calmly and intelligently in an interview/collaborative situation, we weren't going to go with the guy that freaked out.