Yeah fair. It was definitely a very negative sign. Having participated in hiring elsewhere, my assumption was maybe it was just a bad recruiter. Generally, engineering managers have a big input into the offer process and I thought I'd give the process the benefit of the doubt over the bad salesmanship. Plus, at that point, it costs me nothing to hear their offer and make a fully informed decision. Even if I knew I wasn't going to take it, waiting a day for a number is a valuable data point.
I agree. It's not easy to gracefully walk out of that kind of situation. At that point it was better to just go through the motions and maybe end the interview prematurely.