[nocoment]

I'm not really against them. I worked somewhere that kept having hiring freezes and they would have made everyone (except payroll perhaps) happier if they made a sequence of short lived offers. Instead, a favored and frequently overqualified candidate would drag their feet and ultimately no one was hired.

I've never simply delayed as a candidate, if I've been less than thrilled with an offer, I've simply stated the terms necessary for me to accept the job right away. Thus far I've either gotten my terms or met about midway with a little time to contemplate the acceptability of the perceived loss.

This makes it far easier for the hiring manager to make a decisions in parallel, request a higher salary for all his negotiations once if necessary, maybe extend a exploding offer to a similar candidate and not have to string along a series of ranked candidates.