My only criticism of Zelda BotW is that I don't have enough time to play it as much as I'd like to!

That's the only valid criticism there is ;)

And maybe that the inventory management is a bit cumbersome at times....

Not sure if this counts but here are some thing I would have like to have been included or changed:
- would like to swim to the bottom of pools / lakes as I had a sword knocked out of me near a pool and wasn't able to swim down to pick it up (guess I could have just reloaded from an earlier save point though)
- should be a way to repair weapons or make them last longer
- combat is fairly simplistic(?) and it would have been nice if they expanded it somewhat
- no endurance type of cave where you fight waves of stronger enemies -- think this is being added in DLC though
- ability to swap an item for another if your inventory if full rather than having to go to inventory, drop item item, and then pick up another one
- show the weapon / item stats as a number so if an enemy drops it, you can see what damage it does and can decide to pick it up or not -- at the moment it only has a red / green arrow indicating it's strength to your current weapon
- needs to be a recipe book so all the meals you discover a listed so you don't have to remember what ingredients to make a certain meal

That's all I can think of off the top of my head - they are nitpicky. The main issues are technical.

Also, I found the open world and that you can complete the game in your own order a double edge sword - I liked it eventually but initially I hated it -- I kept going to places that I was vastly under powered for and it just added needlessly to frustration.

I'm kinda experiencing the opposite atm. I went to places that attract me the most, desert and mountain climbing, which are pretty tough zones. After doing everything with the Rito and Gerudo I'm now in some green coastal area with mostly weak enemies, bit boring after Geruda and Hebra. When you're used to dmg 46 weapons dropping and now the best is dmg 12, zzzzz.

Another minor criticism, why bother training a horse if you can simply take one from an enemy and it has max bond instantly. There was this horse race I tried to do with a recent capture. Horse doesn't listen, makes me lose twice, horse ends up dead (fell into my sword a couple of times...) I take one from a koblin, easy win.

I also don't get the horse capture mechanic. So far they either always throw me off or it's instant success. What's the point of soothing or what are you supposed to do? One horse I kept chasing threw me off 6 times in a row after depleting nearly 3 stamina circles each time.

But you don't have to do all this.

Why should I go out and find the best gear available if it doesn't matter at the end.

In contrast to RPG's grinding would be pointless, because the final boss could be still a pain in the ass either without gear or with all maxxed.

My negative impressions so far after 53 of hours in the game:

1. Perfomance. Wii U version is barely playable for many ingame areas, I'd say 50% of the map is unplayable. 20 fps perfomance during the tense fights, during explosions, during fire distribution. Each village and town, each stable, Lost Wood, Death Mountain - basically every important location runs like shit. Game work flawless in empty fields, Akkana region, Gerudo region, on the both snowy mountains. That's all.

2. Shrines and Beasts "dungeons". The most dissapointed aspect. All the shrines share the same "Sheikah" aestetic. I finished 60 shrines and found only 2 interesting puzzle-wise: constellations one and green electric circuit one. Others shrines literally made for the 10-year-old: "Put sphere into the hole", "Use magnesis", "Motion-centric puzzle". Tests of Strength lazy as fuck - same miniguardian over and over with different weapons.
Shrines without puzzles sucks too. Quantity over quality.
Beasts "Dungeons" so far dissapointing: same aestetic, same structure, same rehash bossfight, short and simple. Whole Bird Beast mission was laziest thing I've ever met in any game.
Ancient Cisterne in SS > everything in BotW. Pathetic.

3. Weapon durability for rare and elemental weapon. It doesn't make any sense when super-duper sword breaks after 10-15 hits. Also there is no point for bows durability and magic rods durability.

4. Music. Same four piano samples for 90% of gameplay time - is this a joke? Gorgeous trailers music have nothing to do with the actual game.

5. Oh yeah, trailers. I love false advertising from Nintendo. Each cool plot-related moment in each official video directly not related with game - all of them are just prerecorded "Memories" clips.

6. Tons of stuff locked behind amiibo.

7. Horses are useless.

8. Blood-moon and rainy weather needs to be fixed - both things simply broken.

9. Zelda english voice acting is terrible.

There are some annoying framerate drops on Wii U that can really kill the good time your having. I go back and forth on whether I like the durability of the weapons or not. I love the cooking system but I suppose it might be a little op. I don't really have any big criticims yet, though I'm only like 6 hours in. 

Lol Never thought of a sword using that idea lol

Biggest complaint is the music. It just doesn't have that Zelda feel to it.

The rain really is a big issue and it doesn't make sense either. Why purposefully stop the player from progressing? It's not like a challenge either. It's just an additional annoyance so that the other annoyances won't feel so alone.

one issue---this game I so perfect!

where to go from here?