Miyamoto was the one who pointed out that Link doesn't hav a sword. He's a playful designer who knew that we'd figure out what he meant.

Aonuma was behind the best world-building/adventure Zelda there was (Majora's Mask), his touch is not anathema to the qualities you find appealing.

I agree; he delights in creating and solving puzzles, and he's good at it.  This is why I think Nintendo should shift him over to creating a new IP, or updating one of Nintendo's older, puzzle-based IPs like Wrecking Crew, Mario & Wario, or even StarTropics.  It'd give the guy a chance to stretch his wings some more: Lord knows he looks like he needs it.  (When did he get so old?!)

I don't mind more difficult puzzles, as long as they make sense (instead of rubbing everything against everything else) but I also want more combat difficulty. Overall, TP's combat was too easy.

I died fighting a fucking plant at E3. A fucking plant! Never in my life have I died in Zelda fighting a damn plant. I'm pretty sure this is gonna be much harder than any recent Zelda by far. Hell enemies actually block now. The thing about Zelda was that enemies were never really a threat just an annoying little obstacle. I hope we're forced to fight enemies now because it seems like its gonna be challenging and a ton of fun.

Not to nitpick, but I'm guessing you never played the NES games!

What were your impressions of the game overall, by the by?  Are you looking forward to it more now that you tried it, or less?

P.S. Welcome to the site!

He was talking about puzzles in the quote in the OP! You even said it yourself.

All I am hoping is that Miyamoto keeps that element of the game toned down. Although even more important are the other elements of fluff in 3D Zelda, and so far we haven't see much of them, thankfully.

Puzzles are an integral part of Zelda, and have been since Link to the Past. "Toned down" could mean anything. Spirit Tracks and Phantom Hourglass belong to an entirely different school of design than 3D Zeldas.

What fluff are you referring to?

Cutscenes, narrative and mandatory activities that get in the way. We haven't seen much of that yet.

I think who you're really looking to argue with is Malstrom, I'm sure he'll respond to your e-mail, I can't act as a proxy. I actually liked the look of SS when I saw the trailer was using motion controls for fluid combat and had a focus on all the weapons, while Malstrom responded that it wasn't good because they should have showed the adventure, the content etc. I don't agree with him because it would be hard to get excited about another Zelda adventure if it didn't look like they had taken the right approach with the controls and the gameplay.

He actually reversed himself on that after watching some people play the floor demo.

Well, he still thinks it was badly shown.