This is tough - I've had similar experiences. I think the main issue here is that the company didn't give you any feedback, so it's hard to know what happened. I've submitted a take-home challenge, but had hiring needs change in the time it took me to complete it, so the company passed. Though I think there are a ton of things you can do to make your self stand out as a candidate with a take-home challenge vs. a whiteboarding interview, they are not for everyone.

I'm pretty sure no feedback is the norm, not the exception. I've done two coding challenges. One was reasonable and lead to an interview, but I was rejected with no feedback.

Second was kinda ridiculous: implement a stripped-down version of their website, with tests (and production-ready, of course). They claimed it could be done in 4 hours, which is probably true for all the devs that work there, since they already know exactly what's involved. I spent ~8 hours on it and submitted something that worked but had problems, which I documented thoroughly. Again, rejected with no feedback.

Were you interviewing in Brisbane, Australia? Sounds very similar to a recent experience of mine.

More and more it is becoming "standard policy" to give zero feedback. It's quite pathetic to be honest

I have fought the “zero feedback” policies at companies going back ~12 years now. I think it’s terrible but I always lose.

But here is why. For every personal story you have of working with a dev that can’t program, your recruiting staff has 3 of bad/lawyer invoking instances of dealing with crazy candidates. They are being honest with you when they tell you any other policy is too expensive.