I think it should be fairly standard expectation to be asked relevant questions to your expertise and not trivia. The interview seemed like a really low-signal interrogation where the folks that pass such an intense "psychological game" don't necessarily correlate to required expertise on the job.

I do agree that the spite aspect could have been reduced or removed. In fact, I couldn't really see the point the article makes: they had a bad interview, a 15 year gap, then they're building yet another search engine... to contest Google?