Emunas, At least we now know where we stand; you’re not claiming that chabad holds like your view of the baal hatanya – you just essentially formed your own Hasidic ideology based on your own reading of seforim that were meant to be given over to chasidim of a particular rebbe.
As for why he doesn’t say to not spend hours on chasidus, he also doesn’t say to not stand on your head while singing mah yedidus – he says what you “should” do and מכלל הן אתה שומע לאו, he gives a step by step guide to how to spend one’s day in learning and does not mention chasidus or kabalah, except for mussar. Granted he doesn’t give a time allotment, but it’s clear from the amount of time necessary to learn kol hatorah kulah that he wouldn’t advocate for it, and if he did, it would have been mentioned in the curriculum for Torah study, but it’s completely left out.
As for changing his mind, he’d have to say so openly for such a claim to begin to be taken seriously. He doesn’t, so just as the ramchal extoled mussar but never said to spend hours a day on it, the baal hatanya can sing the praises of chasidus and it has no bearing on how much time he believed should be spent.
I do agree that just like mussar, the amount of chasidus a person should learn depends on themselves; this is exactly why rav chaim brisker was against a mussar seder, because he said that some need more, and some need less – as in, some need 10 minutes, and some need 40, or maybe an hour, but more than that is almost certainly bitul Torah.