Skyward sword had a lot of good ideas (A linear zelda is fine, the combat system is great in theory, and the emphasis on character and story are both things I wanna see in Zelda), but they were all done poorly. The writing was bad, the combat system was fundamentally broken and never seemed to work for me, and the linearity was absolutely obliterated by Fi, the single most annoying sidekick in the history of gaming. Not only was Fi's personality and behaviour annoying as hell, it removed ALL aspects of the game's sense of adventure.

I genuinely don't see how anyone likes the game.

Skyward Sword is an uneven game for sure, and the game that showed the formula they'd followed since Ocarina of Time was starting to get a bit long in the tooth, but it does so much so right that I can forgive its flaws.
That said, I feel it's less a stepping stone to BOTW and more a last holdover of its kind before its successor brought about a much needed revolution that was as much about diverging from Skyward Sword as evolving from it.

From my POI, and my view of Zelda (exploration + puzzles + "lock and key" design paradigm), pendulum swung too much in opposite direction with BotW compared to Aonuma Zeldas. Change was more that needed, it's just, again for me, there was too many of the wrong ones.

Ultimately, there is a balance between exploration, puzzles and story, it's just that Zelda in its latest incarnation is probably as far away from that balance as it's predeccessors were, just in different aspects - it's just happen that current (still active) fad is all about open worlds. Maybe, eventually, pendulum will come to rest at the midpoint.

Title for the new game: The Legend of Zelda: Hand of Time.

Personally I'm quite happy with where the pendulum came to rest with BOTW. All I'd really like to change for the successor is more enemy variety and themed dungeons, other than that I'm more than happy for BOTW's design to remain the new series blueprint in the way Ocarina was the blueprint for Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword.

Skyward sword had a lot of good ideas (A linear zelda is fine, the combat system is great in theory, and the emphasis on character and story are both things I wanna see in Zelda), but they were all done poorly. The writing was bad, the combat system was fundamentally broken and never seemed to work for me, and the linearity was absolutely obliterated by Fi, the single most annoying sidekick in the history of gaming. Not only was Fi's personality and behaviour annoying as hell, it removed ALL aspects of the game's sense of adventure.

I genuinely don't see how anyone likes the game.

IT's not about 'not liking what I don't like', it's about the game fundamentally breaking itself to become what it is. It's about failing to do the things it sets out to do. It's about the game not succeeding at its most critical points. 

I hate Grand Theft Auto V and I don't personally see the appeal of most MOBAs and MMOs and online shooters and realistic racing sims, but I totally get why people like them. I see the appeal, I see the quality, I know they're great for what they are and I try my best to not get involved because it's not my area of interest/expertise. But with stuff like Skyward Sword (And Dark Souls II and Final Fantasy XIII and a handful of others), they ARE in my wheel house, I DO know and understand a lot about what makes them tick, and I have a semi-professional take on the matter that makes it clear these games fundamentally failed. 

Y'all need to stop disregarding proper assessment and critique as 'just, like, your opinion, man'. So many people misconstrue subjective opinions with objective reality. You can't just ignore a game's flaws and pretend like people identifying these flaws is the same as being a hater or some immature nonsense. It's not very conducive to a proper discussion in any way. 

The game's controls - the most important element of the game's ability to...be played - are fundamentally flawed for an entirely too-large percentage of people. They didn't work as intended. The puzzles didn't register as intended. some people had no problems with them or could work around the problems but a lot of people hate the game because the controls were fundamentally broken and flawed and didn't work. this isn't a matter of opinion, this is an instance where a game's core mechanic is inconsistent and that ruins the experience for far too many people. If it didn't break for you, good for you, it broke for me and I played the game for 20+ hours. Every single combat encounter and every single puzzle was a chore of random chance, luck, and frustration. 

Zelda is an adventure game. that is its genre. the core concept behind the franchise's appeal is the idea that you're exploring a world and gradually opening it up as you get new items and new abilities. Fi ruins all that. "There's a 94% chance that you should go this direction and do this". That's not an adventure, that's a zelda game that may have well been on rails. I'm all for making games accessible, and anyone with a heart and brain should agree that allowing these options is important, but there's a world of difference between offering an option and halting the game every 30 seconds to force a dialogue explanation that tells you what you already figured out before you go do it. It's overly intrusive conveyance and completely counterintuitive to what the game is trying to do. 

As for the writing and dialogue, I liked what they were trying to do but it was pretty bland, generic, and poorly written. Bad writing can still be fun and appealing (Hell, my most popular short stories are almost always the ones I put the least amount of thought into the dialogue), but you can't pretend it's not bad. 

All in all, you need to stop conflating subjective opinions with objective reality. That's exactly why we still have anti-vaxxers and flat earthers who think their opinions are as valid as the science they oppose. 

Title for the new game: The Legend of Zelda: Hand of Time.

Personally I'm quite happy with where the pendulum came to rest with BOTW. All I'd really like to change for the successor is more enemy variety and themed dungeons, other than that I'm more than happy for BOTW's design to remain the new series blueprint in the way Ocarina was the blueprint for Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword.

I'm similarly happy with Breath of the Wild, and its focus on open-ended, emergent gameplay. Heck, it's the best game I've played. At the same time, I do love the structured action-adventure blueprint from the 1992-2013 years, and hope that doesn't disappear. Maybe the tradition can carry on with new 2D installments?

The people for whom the controls didn't work either had a broken Wii mote, didn't have the sensor bar placed ideally or fundamentally did something wrong. Because if you control it the way the tutorial tells you it works. It nearly always worked for me.