The catch is that even in-person interviews are no panacea. I agree that it's worth the time to filter -- I wasn't really responding to that bit -- but from what I've seen, you have to be a very good interviewer not to get a bad hire every so often.

I often wonder how many hiring managers are actually good interviewers, in-person or not, but I digress...

Seeing the truly bad hires dragged along to the detriment of the rest of the team is a sore spot for me, though. It happens way too often in my experience.