It isn't fair to the person applying because they didn't pick the people on the panel, but if the one doing the interviewing doesn't hide their feeling it's obviously not great.
Also, regardless of whether or not they want to be there, it's a bad look for the company. Somebody took a day off to talk to you, it's only fair that an interviewer reciprocates
It has upsides and downsides, like as you said you had to go through 3 different on-sites (one for each team), but you'll get a good sense of the team before getting an offer (and they'll get a good sense of you). I like the Apple method much better but I had an unusually bad Google interview process so it's possible other people had better experiences.
Can confirm that this is largely true, with an asterisk.
The interview panel (for SWE candidates) is indeed drawn at random, but it's becoming more and more common to conduct fit interviews for specific roles. This is usually done by the hiring manager, in rare cases also involving other people (e.g. the tech lead).