"I would suddenly recollect the sheer amount of time remaining and forthcoming toll on my wrists"

My first guess is that you're doing all the mixing by hand. If the recipe companies are giving times for machine-mixing that would create a huge gap. And it would be just like them to pick the stat that looked best without specifying it depended on certain equipment.

Second possibility: I learned to ignore instructions to "drop on an ungreased baking sheet". My sheets always have to be greased or else I spend ages chiseling the burned crust off between sheetfuls. (My cookie sheets are bare metal, not non-stick.)