Sure, that's completely reasonable. But getting hung up on them for an hour is ridiculous.

I also think they're unnecessary in the first place. I wouldn't hold it against anyone in a scenario like you described but I also wouldn't expect it. Solving the task as it's posed is good enough.

I might just mention that my first instinct would be to fix the root of the problem instead of asking about it, I wouldn't expect the interviewer to have spent time world building for their made up task.