Spread out over a few weeks, we probably spent 24 hours on the app (this estimate includes tasks like market research, for example, to answer the "who are your competitors" question). Maybe this seems like a long time, but I think it takes a long time to come up with well-written, concise prose.
Now, we didn't get accepted, but we did make it to the interview.
I didn't even know about the program until the afternoon on which applications were due--I had seen the Boston one come and go, but would have never considered a move from Austin to Boston...by the time I realized there was one in CA, it was close to too late. I submitted it within hours of the deadline, and had dozens of other things going on at the same time. I looked back over it later (before going for the interview in Boston), and it was pretty bad, except in a few spots where deep knowledge of our field and code overwhelmed the slapdash nature of the thing as a whole.
If it makes you feel better, we just scraped by, on the obvious difficulty of the problems that we had already solved when we arrived for the interview (and even then pg was not on board with what we were doing...I'm pretty certain we owe our acceptance entirely to Trevor and rtm, who have done system administration and recognized the pain that our product takes away, while pg seemingly couldn't figure out why we would even want to address those problems).
But, you're absolutely right: It's not the point I was trying to make.
s/20 minutes/2 fortnights/g and the intent is the same.