[spmurrayzzz]

If the take home assessment is scoped to a small amount of time (1-2 hours is small IMO) with the expectation that the seniority level you're selecting for could complete it in less than that time, I don't see any problem as long as you don't put arbitrarily constrained time limits on how long you are willing wait for the submission.

I agree with you that if the candidate is going to spend the time to do the exercise, the hiring manager should be spending an equal amount of time as well in the process. But that effort can come from the detailed review of the code, the time commitment of which should be in the service of being able to have a meaningful conversation about the candidate's submission in later rounds (which is useful for your last point about discovering what its like to actually work with the candidate).