Or I'm just politely asking for confirmation of what I'm interviewing for, as I'm participating in said interview. You sound like that proverbial manager who refused to hire someone because at the lunch interview the candidate put salt on his fries before trying them, and the hiring manager extrapolated that to mean he doesn't properly analyze situations before acting.
As for "role" and "expert", you seem to think that in an interview my job is to be subordinate. Quite the contrary, at present I'm not unemployed and my bills are paid. I'm looking for an upgrade, not a necessity. So in an interview I'm still deciding if the company is worthy of my subordination/my making them more money. I may not be leadership, but I can pick which leader to support. Leaders who are oversensitive to basic, polite questioning during a job interview clearly don't want/need help that badly.
Now once a subordinate, obviously there are times/places for questions and times/places when they are not helpful. But if you consider questioning decisions in general "poison" for your team, and you fear your team turning into a "snake pit" if someone starts asking questions, then that points to a severe lack of trust and/or poor communication between you and your subordinates. Either of which would turn me away even if you offered to double my salary.
It's not honest. You're not asking the question to better understand the situation, you're asking the question to make a rhetorical point. You're not expressing your opinion, you're hiding your opinion, and setting up a "trap" for the employer to possibly fall into if they answer "incorrectly". You think you know better.
Asking questions doesn't create a snake pit, not being straightforward with your opinions does. Asking leading questions that force people to not trust your motivations will certainly create a toxic work environment.
Related, I don't think you actually believe I was genuinely putting forward the idea that you shouldn't ask questions in your interview. I have some not-great theories about why you chose to do that, but this probably isn't worth the time it'd take to figure it out with you...
It is honest, it's just not 100% blunt. I'm saying a professional version of "Now that I've proven my resume isn't a complete lie, you know these problems are irrelevant and non-representative, right?" and gauging their reaction with a plausible out that I was just confirming basic information if I need it. I can even throw in that anecdote about my previous job where I was hired for one thing and pushed into another. Hell if there's another engineer in the room we might even bond over it. If I was 100% blunt I'd be guilty of the very snark you say is impossible not to have and likely get less information about them thanks to pushing too hard. I have to pass their "is he completely full of shit?" test, why shouldn't they have to pass mine? Ideally we both pass our respective tests and both sides become much less guarded as the interview goes on.
As for "knowing better", in the past I occasionally have known better than some of my bosses, as born out in money lost (once to the tune of millions of dollars) doing it their way until they (miraculously and of their own accord, of course) came around to doing it the way some of my co-workers and I had been promoting. Was a minority of cases, but often enough that I don't assume competence or honesty from strange managers without at least some indirect verification.
As for not asking any questions in interviews, I didn't mean to insinuate you meant that exactly. But from your statements it appears you would have issues with non-technical non-job-specific questions, because I'm an engineer and such questions would be "taking a moral position beyond your role on a topic you're not an expert in.". Which to me sounds like "Engineers shouldn't judge businesses beyond their immediate role because they don't have business degrees". To which I'd say I don't need to be an "expert" to judge interviewing techniques any more than I need to be a licensed auto-mechanic to change my oil and brake pads. Likewise I've learned the hard way to examine a business's financial incentives/disincentives, business model and direct competition more closely than the job descriptions, because those factors will determine the nature of the job I'm applying for a lot more than any given mission statement or brief description in an interview. So I may ask questions about those topics as well, despite being "beyond my role".
Since you value direct honesty about intentions: this conversation is beneficial to me in forcing me to explain/defend these perspectives in greater detail than I usually have the opportunity/need to. So for whatever it's worth I thank you for that. It's clear we both come from very different experiences in approaching this scenario, and I'm sure your experience bears out your arguments just as mine does my arguments. I doubt we'll come to an agreement here, but part of me wonders how I'd do in an interview with you if I wasn't aware it was you and you weren't aware it was me, from this thread. Probably never going to find out, but would be interesting.
I can't honestly said I read this. The fact that you're writing this much to try and justify something so simple and unimportant should be a red flag to you.
As for "role" and "expert", you seem to think that in an interview my job is to be subordinate. Quite the contrary, at present I'm not unemployed and my bills are paid. I'm looking for an upgrade, not a necessity. So in an interview I'm still deciding if the company is worthy of my subordination/my making them more money. I may not be leadership, but I can pick which leader to support. Leaders who are oversensitive to basic, polite questioning during a job interview clearly don't want/need help that badly.
Now once a subordinate, obviously there are times/places for questions and times/places when they are not helpful. But if you consider questioning decisions in general "poison" for your team, and you fear your team turning into a "snake pit" if someone starts asking questions, then that points to a severe lack of trust and/or poor communication between you and your subordinates. Either of which would turn me away even if you offered to double my salary.