I've done very few interviews (on either side of the table) but I wish I would come across one that had two main questions in the technical interview:

1. Write some piece of code that you think is cool. It doesn't have to originally be yours, and if it would take too long to recreate exactly, write it out in pseudo code and explain how it works and why you chose it.

2. (Slightly more common, and I've asked this before) We are having Problem A, and it would be within the scope of your responsibilities. How would you approach it?

the interviewer asks follow up questions to both and hopefully learns something in the process.