My experience was nearly identical taking the GRE in 2003.
I don't know if the algorithm has changed since the early aughts, and I don't know if that approach is better or worse than the one-size-fits-all non-adaptive SAT, but the difference was always striking to me. You'd think that if the GRE adaptive approach was better statistically (by whatever measure) they'd move towards it soon for the SAT as well since they're going full digital finally.