Well the two previous new entries in the series. I'm not talking about remake or remasters ala Windwaker. The development time is comparable to a modern day Grand Theft Auto.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not trying to bait fans of the series ( If you've read my posts , you'll see i'm actually a HUGE Fan). I'm waiting for the day Nintendo announces the release date so I can plan my Wii U purchase, just as I purchased a Wii last gen for Zelda only.

 Is it a question of resources Nintendo allocates? Yes, I know they've developed DS and 3DS Zelda games since ( Rockstar made GTA IV plus dlc , Red Dead Redemption AND GTA V in the same time frame between the last Zelda and the next one) I'm obviously not asking for Nintendo to UBISOFT i.e. annualize the series , I would just prefer to have a new main entry ever 3 years , as opposed to 5 years. Can anybody shed some light?

No idea. I hate it though... Much too long. I liked it when they released more consistently (Ocarina to Wind Waker).

I mean, they should reuse the same engine sometimes instead of building from the ground up each time.

Because each Zelda is built, more or less, from scratch. New assets, new art-style, new controls, new engines, and so on. That takes a lot of time.

Many sequels these days are built using similar engines or recycled assets in order to save costs and time.

Well, the later games usually have a big amount of dungeons, which must be difficult do design since they're pretty complex. Also, the Zelda team usually makes big changes in the middle of the development, which I think is the main reason why it take so long. They also take some time to experiment which art direction to go. So that's enough reasons already, but this time specifically, it's also the first Zelda in HD AND the game seems to have a huge open world. So I think that's why.

I think they experiment and come up with new ideas too much, which is why Zelda got delayed presumably to next year. Maybe it takes a long time to start off as the basic story and ideas ect need to be thought of.

That said, it makes it a better game overall but I wouldn't mind them having a bigger development team so it only takes 4 years.

Basically this.

This is also their first time making a 'real' open world game so there is a lot of things they need to test out to see if it works well

they do take ALOT time into planning the game. The games are often very unique and all the dungeons and riddles have to be thought.
Making a Zelda game is easily compareable to making a GTA game.

The game needs to be perfected to its fullest, TBH i like having a 5 year development time, means the game will probably be freaking amazing

Yeah a lot of the time is sucked up by the experimenting. I remember they said once that they took three years to perfect the 1-1 swordplay mechanics of Skyward Sword and come up with an art-style that suited it...

I agree having three years as the total development time would be much more favorable. Even Iwata thinks so, because he said he wanted 'the next Zelda' after SS to come out in three years' time, but Aonuma doesn't really seems to listen. On the other hand though, even if I want to play it like, now, the delay will probably turn out for the best and it will be awesome for sure.