As usual, the companies who expect it have no real idea who they want to hire and the take home was ambiguous and poorly structured. There was no clear criteria for success and they said it was 'open'.

All that means is they don't know what a successful candidate looks like and therefore have no idea who they want to hire and the person reviewing it will just nit pick anything they think is wrong.

As a candidate, I have found that take homes just aren't worth it.

Do you do take homes? If so, under what circumstance/context have you found them successful?

Fwiw I'm in ML so they are exceptionally and especially stupid for ML.