There is (was?) no time limit for a commercially trained person - unless it was specified in the school's syllabus. Last time I was a CFI I re-wrote the syllabus so that *every* student who trained there trained under the 150hr syllabus. I included GFPT, PPL, NVFR, Multi and aeros within the syllabus and all IF time was part of an eventual CIR. That way any student could 'pause' training at any point but still be able to resume in the future if s/he should ever decide to gain a CPL &/or CIR, and not be forced to fly to the 200hr minimum.
Of course they would still have to meet minimum skill standards so, like any syllabus, even though the syllabus specified a minimum of 150hrs it still required a standard of skill to be reached before being recommended for a test.