> I'm claiming that both interviewer and interviewee have a similar workload
I do not know what this means or what relevance it holds to our context.
> and that usually only one party feels like they need to engage, the other is in a position of power and is the gatekeeper to 'the job' and so feels no need to engage
Again, what are you saying? Recall, we are discussing the very silly claim that "you'll end up with team players but with nobody who will actually get the job done" based on an interview scenario where the interviewee is required to perform part of the problem-solving a job entails, just not a part which is not explicitly implementing a solution alone (coding).
This language about the interviewer not "engaging" and "[not realizing] they represent the company" seems like an entirely separate conversation. Additionally, your usage of "I've seen this numerous times" and initial assumption that the interviewing company would "start off with insulting [the interviewee's] intelligence" don't really make me feel like you're discussing a good-faith interview, instead pre-supposing all interviews are performed in bad faith and interviewees are right to be offended by what they are being ask.
I dislike this muchly, but indeed, the top of this comment tree addresses this attitude directly, something you entirely ignored:
> [As an interviewer], I'm asking [each question] for a reason; you might think it's stupid, but I wouldn't ask if I didn't care what your answer was
So I do not understand why you continued to go forward assuming the interviewing company is acting in bad faith. They are not, that attitude makes no sense, and the context has already directly been set for our conversation that the interviewer is asking this question in good faith because they believe it to be a signal wrt employee value.
Please understand, as someone who interviews, one of the critical filters we introduced was evaluating candidates on their interactivity & collaboration. Doing this explicitly has resulted in a marked uptick in the quality of our candidates. Of course, we still aggressively apply filters that ensure these candidates can code and have implemented solutions of similar complexity & domain as we expect them to architect & create, but introducing the collaboration filter has resulted in coworkers of remarkable ability to solve problems quickly and continuously, both as individuals and in direct collaboration. I would easily say you would fail this filter entirely, and you should take care to not allow your bitter attitude to calcify.