Been doing it the same for over 20 as well, only had one bad hire and it had to do with drugs and attitude more than skill set. He was a good developer and was sober when I hired him but fell off the wagon and started missing work, no showing etc. I fully concur that if you can't spot a competent developer from a conversation, you probably should not be in the position of evaluating potential developers.

I don't disagree that there are a lot of fake it till you make it developers who did a vo-tech class and are applying for jobs out of their league, but I just don't know how people don't spot them. It takes me about 5 phone calls to find a competent individual, and then I bring them in for a in person. As a hiring manager, I don't find it cumbersome to weed thru 5-10 people to find a good hire.