There may be some small differences in how efficiently your body digests food at night than during the day but 2pm vs. 11pm is an incredibly minor optimization. It's like optimizing your array structures when you should be using a hash. The only timing optimization I've heard of which has some scientific backing is the glycogen/metabolic window thought that's exploited for those trying to gain weight.
I think the reason you often hear about the "don't eat at night" advice is that it's easy to do which is what people want to hear. Most people will fallaciously rather follow the advice of "Eat ice cream at 2pm instead of 11pm" than the advice of "Don't eat ice cream at all."
The reason that "don't eat at night" will sometimes appear to work is that people will naturally eat less when you cut out a huge block of time in which they can't eat.