[nickdandakis]

What does skill have to do with difficulty?

Big red flag if you think the only way to impress someone of your coding skills is if you overengineer a solution. If some candidate submitted an overengineered solution, I wouldn't hire them.

I agree on needing time to solve the take-home. That's the biggest con with this approach.

If you don't have the desire to complete the take-home exercise, then you probably don't want to work there in the first place.