@Gus My personal opinion- Hiring assignments, however close to the real work, are useless to the companies. Executing a project is much tougher and very different from a case study.
People doing real work know this and they don’t rely on such assignments to do their job.
Folks who rely on shady practices where they use assignments to do their jobs can’t anyway do real work.
So either way, the assignments are useless to the companies.
But assignments help you present complex ideas to your hiring managers which may not be effective if you communicate verbally.
Also it helps in structuring your thought process which will help you get things done during your actual job.
So, it’s better to do the assignment even if it’s painful.