I’ve shared the same experience! Coming out of college every time I’d get a take home I would always blow way over the expected allotted time. They’d say it should take 5 hours and I’d end up on it for 20 since I actually had the time then.

Year’s later I did the same as you and decided to stick to the recommended time, because I really don’t want to waste my nights/weekends on this junk anymore. Working full time there’s barely any time for relaxing anyway. Sure enough, the same thing happened in review. Got absolutely shredded on my implementation. Didn’t get an offer and kind of wish they didn’t even call me back.

And that's the worst part about the take home assignments, all the people you're competing with are claiming they did it within the time limit when they're really taking far longer to make it perfect.