Because there are plenty of people who can regurgitate things but not be able to do much with it. I've seen it with CS grads from good schools, its disconcerting and confusing.
Why are you asking "fact regurgitation"-type technical questions? I prefer to ask open-ended ones, questions that start a discussion that will quickly determine if the candidate really understands what they are saying. It also reveals correct but rigid thinking, something I would like to generally avoid but that doesn't always come up in a coding exercise.
That's why you drill down when a statement sounds like it came from a blog/book/screencast.
While I agree it's frustrating dealing with someone like this, often times it's easy to pick out the statements/topics that the person is regurgitating.
Agreed, but for people who have to justify hire/nohire/fire decisions to their bosses or other parts of an organization an objective metric is very useful.
