I trend to agree with you. The world is messed up, interviews aren’t supposed to be fair to you, and you’re probably competing with dozens of people.

No matter how good you are, and if you tick all the employers boxes (which may be unfair in itself and takes quite some luck to do), that’s not enough. What is enough is that you’re the best candidate among dozens of qualified people, according to the subjective criteria of this particular interviewer, and you have no clue what to do to get there. So random gestures may take you over the line, as well as they may not.