If anything I feel that things have gotten better, although this may be a difference between my former enterprise Windows-stack life vs. open source tech life. The main differences I see are:
- Take homes are more prevalent... but I recall only one which has taken more than a half day, and that was fair as I was relatively new to Rails at the time. I actually like doing these for jobs I'm interested in as they give me an opportunity to flex my skills.
- There's about a 50% chance that you get a CTCI type interview vs. a more pragmatic, what-you-experience-on-the-job type domain modeling, write out in code in Rails (or whatever framework being used) type of pairing. When I'm on the hiring side I focus on the latter and feel it's quite effective. When I was starting out you almost always got the CTCI type.
I typically red-flag potential employers who don't sufficiently validate the skillset of potential hires. I've worked with plenty of people who were terrible, it's one of the reasons I transitioned to Rails.