I've found from my experience that even with a friend/past coworker inside, a company tends to use their recruiters. The benefit of the friend (or multiple friends) is that their voice can carry more weight at the post interview roundtable.

Gaikai had a pretty aggressive recruiter, but I later saw it was to try and screen out potential bad employees in the startup environment. That was one of the most intense person to person interviews I had. And in no way was he sitting there trying to fill out a prepackaged form.

I think your experience does point to a recruiter who is heavily under pressure from above for process, and is forced to document everything. Could be a warning sign the company is a process for process sake place, instead of process as a tool to improve the workplace.