you can pretty much take off and go build your night time..
That didn't sound like commercial flying, but more like private time building.
The bar for ATPL has been indeed raised quite a bit, also on the side of the theoretical exam, which realistically take at least one year to do. Overall I agree it sets a certain high standard, but it also puts up a high barrier. Nowadays it's not so easy to get a job requiring ATPL, because you have to work your way up with different jobs (first get the hours instructing, then you need a single engine turbine job to get turbine time, then you need to upgrade to multi engine to get into offshore, where you finally can log multi crew time).