My own interview process with them was fairly benign and un-amusing albeit so protracted that I had to accept an offer elsewhere. It seems to be that Google is in fact "lowering" their standards in order to fill holes. No more Stanford or CMU, ~ 4.0 GPA requirements (instead, I read, they did a 500 question survey of all their current employees to find what correlates with good performance and found it's not necessarily GPA): they called me back recently to see if I wanted to come back and chat with them! I do know that their previous narrow focus was to their loss, for they turned down at least one person whom I would go to great lengths to hire should I ever get back into the startup game.
--ravi