It would not ruin Link as a character, that is a silly thing to say.
On the one hand I want to go "THere's no real need to change it," but on the same note that can easily sprout from reasoning that boils down to "Male protagonists are the default mode so it's justified", when that's not really the case.
However, Link himself is male, as an icon, and changing his gender would also change up the iconography, so I can see why they would not do that.







