In my 30 years of gaming, I have never had a loss of data like this. In this particular case, it shouldn't have even been an issue as:

1. It should just autosave
2. It shouldn't have crashed in the first place.

Now I save after every semi-decent point of the game.

W T F!

"If you like Zelda you'll love this game!" THat's all I heard about it from these forums and varous other sites. Well, you're right ... mostly. It is a huge homage (*cough* rip off *cough*) of the original LoZ game from 1986.

What's the problem?  It's a homage to all games of that genre in a newer format with a total old school flair.  I don't comprehend how anyone who actually enjoys the older games from that time span with that stylization would be upset over a 2010ish current gen game being made in essentially their honor?

It has many exact copies of enemies, almost identical game layout, with some unique changes like swords and magic. It has been a great game in that nostalgic fashion and has some nicely added features that came along in later Zelda games like Zelda:LTTP.

Yep.

1. For instance, why do I have to manually save? No one other PS3 game I've touched forces me to manually save. There is no gameplay element here as saving is completely separate from making your revival point. It should just save the damn game on its own.

To keep the nostalgic feel?  Why else would they do that?  Do you honestly believe they didn't know how or forgot to program that in?  This game is designed specifically for that feel.

2. I understand why a game in 1986 on a system that is less powerful than most people's phones today had to load single frames at a time. But, why the hell does this game do that? Why can't it just load the entire map or dungeon in memory (enemies don't need to be mobile yet, so resource use is still low)? I should only ever see a black screen for apparent loading when entering/exiting a building/dungeon. Freaking annoying.

Same reason as above. Nostalgia doesn't work if half the elements are different.  I used to play Everquest hardcore years ago.  Part of my nostalgia with the game was loading in between zones, without a technically seamless world merely an illusion of one.   A game removing all of that, feels 100% different. 

3. Why the hell do I see minor screen glitches at random loading points? This game is not that complex. The graphics and physics as well as AI are far below the greater majority of PS3 games. There is no reason every single part of this game should not be polished to its finest based on its unique 3D pixel display. Just fucking enept coding.

Maybe their budget for a nostalgic Action RPG for a small developer wasn't huge?  Maybe they didn't have time to polish this like it was a gem?  Hell, games polished for YEARS have minor 'glitches' all over the place.  It's not enept coding,  it's time-cost-value ratio.  If this was a new Halo with a 40 million dollar budget maybe you'd be right to gripe, I doubt the budget was large, it was just a good idea they decided to turn into a reality with a limited-small budget.

4. THIS GAME IS FAR TO SIMPLE TO EVER CRASH!!! The other day I spent several hours upgrading and beating the Fire Temple. Once finished I happily moved out on my quest to chase down the Purple Orb's Sage. For the second (happenend once more later too) time since starting this game the game just crashed during a completely unnecessary black loading screen. WTF!

Who knows?  Your complaints fall on deaf ears here.  I played the entire game start to finish twice and never experienced any real issues that I could complain about.  Games crash, systems freeze, lots of possible causes (Sometimes not even game related).

Because the horrendous coding and lack of any professional integrity as well as the common foresight to include automatic saving that has been standard on PS3 games thus far I had to lose 4 hours of my life and redo the whole damn area.

Atlus FromSoftware, you suck and you need to hire real managment who knows how to bitch slap a dev to rework an obviously crappily done setup.

Extreme much? I give them credit for doing something COMPLETELY different than everyone out there right now (With Demon's Souls and 3D Dot)  carving their own little niche in a Call of Duty 2,3,4,5,6,7,Black Ops, Cyber OPs, Halo, Killzone world.

 This is actually a really fun game.. its just too bad it wasn't polished better with some needed changes for modernization and proper use of the hardware.

It was a game meant to make you nostalgia, not to revitalize the genre with a new twist.  All that you needed to say was said in the first sentence above.  It is a 'really fun' game.   Enjoy it.  Stop being so picky and asking for perfection on everything.   Games have never been perfect,  you can always find glitches.  For a small development team with a limited budget,  I love the games they have created.

A) While I understand your point its seems like a bad design decision. To me, if you're going to pay homage to a classic, you don't have to be a carbon copy. You can and should remove the elements that were not part of the design, but were realistically technology limitations. For instance, if this was all for retro appeal (if forced saving and black loading screens are really an appeal) then why is in in HD visuals? Why does the water looks so fluid vs the blue copied cells of LoZ? They made the decision to upgrade the visuals to be crisper and more modern, there is no reason they should have kept an archaic saving system and completely unnecessary loading.

B) I have on an extreme rare occasion had a crash with a higher end game. And for the $15 I bought this game new, I'm not complaining about its value. Its a really good game otherwise. However, there is a clear difference between a random and rare bug to a simply lack of deep testing.

C) I clearly labeled this thread as a rant. :P