Honestly, is it unreasonable to require that people brush up on this stuff every couple of years? In my experience the majority of companies just want you to be able to do fizz buzz level whiteboarding and intelligently speak to your experience. I feel like we all know in advance which companies typically require a month long review of algorithms before the interview. IF you want to work for one of them then do what you need to do to get the job there. We all agree it's annoying but I really don't think it's as big a deal as people make it out to be.
You can conceivably move up to management, never have to deal with algorithm hazing again, and make more than the guy that has to refresh every few years.
The rewards just do not add up for this to remain an industry practice.
But the innovative businesses that develop genuinely new technologies also hire "the guys that has to refresh every few years". Leaving aside the potential financial gains if you're in early enough and they have a big exit, those also tend to be interesting places to work.
Moving into management is essentially changing career, and for the kind of person who actually enjoys programming and wants to do something creative and technical, there's no reason to assume they would either enjoy the new role or be any good at it.
That sounds like a career change that I wouldn't enjoy, despite being able to also avoid some of my least-favorite aspects of staying on the dev side of things.
