I agree completely. These things are ways for companies to waste your time in the interview, and make it harder. Job interviews used to be 1 hour and a handshake. Then a reference check.
Let me tell you why that was better than the current hiring meta.
1) I can learn everything I need to know in an hour with someone. 2 will likely not drastically give me a better idea. 8 hours with someone is not 8 times better, it just doesn't scale like that. So the idea that the more work you give a candidate, or the more interviews, or whatever, the better your hiring practice, it's just not true.
2) People can be very nervous in interviews. It's an intimidating, adversarial environment that has no relation at all to the job or work. It's almost the beginning of the way for the company to treat you as lesser, and they will take advantage of that to screw you these days. As you say, they will just ghost you. They didn't used to do this nearly so much. They'd at least send you a letter, or give you a call.
3) Even if 1 and 2 weren't true, the questions asked in interviews have no relationship with the real job. You just can't ramp up in time, etc. There's too much learning. Picture an intern. They do nothing except take everyone's time for the first month, but it's the rest that matters. Will they get something useful done before they leave? Maybe. But it does take a while to ramp up. So interview questions don't judge job performance.
But we still do it, because people like that tinge of power I guess. That feeling of control in that you can say yes or no to someone, they have to placate you for the job, etc. A lot of interviewers I know act very strange in interviews too, and they don't act that normally.
For the interviewee, it's even worse. You waste your time, you spend a lot of emotional energy, you don't know if you like the people you'd be working with, you don't know really what you'll work on, and no matter what you have to do what your boss says anyway, which can change at any time. Oh and it's "right-to-work" so they can fire you any time for any reason.
It's much more useful to talk to their previous boss or friends or references. Even if they are biased, you can usually tell pretty quick again who is telling you nonsense. At least then you can hear real stories about real situations in the past, rather than useless hypotheticals. But we don't do that anymore because of liability from lawsuits in hiring. Because a lot of companies are actively discriminating. Some are passively doing it, some are trying to do better but are hopeless. So everyone is just covering their ass.
Sounds like a great deal!