It really does work. Remember, ultimately there's some real human being making the decision to hire you, and more often than not, it's based on whether he likes you or not.
One of my interviews just consisted of me nerding out and reminiscing with the CTO about oldschool 1337 h4x0r shit. He ended it with something to the tune of "I like you. How about $10k more than what you make now?"