i have heard from my PD that this is a much deeper year than usual, and reading through some of the interview packets, i must say i've been more than intimidated by some. but board scores and AOA, while impressive resume builders, do not help you if you are a total bozo in person and a nightmare to work with! we have a basic cutoff to interview people, and then go from there. if the residents (and or faculty) give us negative feed back about someone, it doesn't matter how high their board scores are, we won't rank them.
as far as the prematch position offering goes, i can see why it may be done. we've offered one so far, and it wasn't because we're afraid of not filling. we saw an excellent candidate that everyone loved and was geographically restricted. why torture the poor guy for several more months, when we could say, "We like you and are planning to rank you high enough to have a guaranteed spot." I think PD's get tired of playing the game, and if they see a good candidate that they want and think will come to the program, why not offer them a spot? we've had some people (in recent memory) swear up and down how much they love us and how they want to come to the program, and there we were shrugging our shoulders about what happened when the match list came out.
and as far as how competitive the specialty is, i don't really care. i didn't go into path because it was tough to get into, i'm doing it because there is no other job in the world that i could imagine doing. and competetiveness is all relative. my particular subspecialty (FP) would not be considered particularly competitive, but the fellowship i am heading to is probably one of the most competitive in the country. so does that mean that i should be proud i got the spot, but not too proud because not many pathologists (and medical school grads as a whole, like less that <0.1%) go into it? it doesn't really matter, i just finally get to do the job that i set out to do 6.5 years ago! (did i mention FINALLY!!!!)