Maybe - I mean, you just get signal from actual coding, I think it's pretty hard to discount entirely. How they solve problems, what mistakes they make, how they debug - I think it's just too valuable to not spend some time on.

And I'm not giving them riddles - I give them easily solvable problems that can be done in almost any programming language. And I've given the same problems enough to know what it canonically looks like in a dozen languages.

This exactly. Start with general questions and get more specific until they are unable to answer or they exceed the depth of your own knowledge on the topic. You’ll be surprised how often that good candidate will take you out of your depth.