I've been a pro for nearly 15 years and the project that I'm most proud of was something i did as an undergrad. Now I'm sad.
What have I worked on since: ACDZip, ACDSee, Tracktion, EAW Resolution, SPIN Review. ACDSee was a brief success, but the rest - meh.
Any given project will be calibrated somewhere between the extremes of "just ship it" and "take 5 years to make a perfect 1.0". A developer who, based on experience, is flexible enough to calibrate themselves to match the project -- who can adapt to reasonable balances of "do it faster" vs. "do it better" -- is valuable.
This magic-bullet interview question had me depressed and made me feel like a failure. I too have nearly 15 years of professional experience. My last projects that I can show off were 4 and 8 years ago.
I don't feel like a failure anymore. I got a reminder that success depends on blind luck a lot and is rather overrated. Hard work, improvement and patience are still essential.
P.S. I have used both Miranda and ACDSee in the past. They reached my highest criteria for software, that few applications reach – were small, fast, reliable and very useful. I wish FigBug best of luck.
But, like you, what does that say about the next 15 years of my career? I'm a waaaaay better developer than I was at the end of my first job.
It is important we understand the words that we left out of the original article.
The point of the question isn't to get an impressive project. While we, the interviewee would love to say, guidance computer on Voyager or the Ray Tracer used in Toy Story; the point of the question is get to know the candidate and how they operate.