[timv]

Do you have a reason to believe (c) is true in practice?

I strongly suspect many interviewers (myself included) would have a few "top issues" and significantly favour candidates who pointed them out. But as the candidate you don't really know which issues will seem important to the interviewer.

It's not an irrelevant exercise though - code reviews are a real part of many roles and making sensible choices about what to comment on is a necessary skill. But it is hard to avoid turning the interview into an exercise in "guess what's on the top of my list"

[wpietri]

The first part of (c) is true, so I guess you're asking about how the interviewers would react?

These folks were obviously interested in differing approaches; we had a good conversation about it. And that's how I use broad questions.

But I agree a huge problem of interviews is the "guess what I'm thinking" interviewer. Most interviewing processes are not primarily about making good hires. They're about making interviewers feel smart and important.