It seems like you didn't want to pay to have the best engineers or you advertised the position in the wrong way. To be honest it feels like you believe you are entitled to have the best while not having much to offer in return.
It does kind of read like the kind of company who advertises for "the best of the best." Then again, when was the last time you saw a job req that covered adequacy in a realistic fashion? "You should eat and breathe Big Data and stomp the kittens of database caching in your sleep." I could go to Craigslist (or HN YC job postings) or wherever for in-the-wild examples here, but I'm sure we're all remembering the same things.