I wasted my time on a coding project for them, so burned is indeed correct, though it was my own fault. I actually never got an offer. They just told me what they thought would be the maximum as they really liked the project. Also, I learned never to do that again.
This last round of contract hunting for me was similar. Every single organization wanted an 8+ hour project to prove my skills but half the salaries ended up being <80k. So I started having to state base contract rates up front.
