That's a huge statement from Aonuma.

The most exciting element for me is either...

(A) The attention to detail and interactivity of the world; you can set vegetation on fire which is then affected by the wind and creates updrafts that can lift your sailcloth, skeleton enemies put themselves back together and even pick up each others severed arms and heads to use as weapons, trees can be chopped/bombed and harvested for wood, enemies aren't armed when just chilling at their camp and you can even sneak up and steal their weapons before they can run and grab them, etc.

(B) The way it effectively throws the series playbook out the window.

With both the Ice Arrows and Fire Rod in the game I'm starting to feel it's possible it's a case of where SS reduced the number of items to get rid of clutter BOTW may include almost all the series items as mechanics for its sandbox approach.

Both posts above are great in their on right!

I agree with curl-6 that Nintendo's attention to details are quite amazing, just how interactive the world is.

And I think Wyrdness is on to something here; it will be interesting to see just how many items they're gonna throw in there. We've seen a lot of different weapons so far, and considering how many Shrines there are in the world and the fact that you seem to get runes and whatnot from them... does that mean 100 different runes?! Probably not, but I'm betting this iteration will have the most items of any Zelda game

I know it's way too early, but if you had to guess: where do you think this will rank among Zelda games when the dust settles?

Among the best. It won't get the high scores as OoT did, but I doubt anything ever will. This will be remembered as one of the best Zelda titles, at least to date, and it'll rank among the 3 best in the series.

EDIT: That's a great topic for the next poll!

I honestly think it has a shot at dethroning Ocarina as the all time best in my personal rankings.

Frankly, from a "which is a the better game as they sit now" perspective, I think it lost that throne long ago :P.  In the context of its time, it is definitely the most influential and monumental among its peers, but now? There are just so many ways the games since surpass it.  Still holds up remarkably for a fifth gen game.

As for BotW topping the metacritic score, no way.  OoT sits at a positively preposterous 99.

Even playing them today, I still give Ocarina the top spot. Yeah, its graphics have aged, but it's soundtrack, dungeons, bosses, and world are still magnificent.

Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword are more polished, and are great games in their own right, but just aren't as consistently brilliant and timeless in my opinion.

See I categorically disagree.  As someone who only played all these games in the last 10 months and has no fond memories or nostalgia, I find Ocarina of Time to have aged worse than most describe.  Not badly, mind.  But it hasn't "not aged a day.". Characters and writing?  There ARE no characters, just a collection of faces with basic, one note personalities that can be  summed up in one sentence.  And the story is beyond plot centered, it is almost exclusively plot focused.  There's some OK world building but every last one of the Zeldas since surpass it in all areas of writing.  The only thing it " has going for it" is the quick pace at the start but honestly, it feels more like a lack of any development of any kind.

Dungeon quality and number is probably the greatest strength.  Here it can match and in Wind Waker and Majora's cases surpass its successors.  But honestly, while they are challenging, they are a less interesting type of challenge compared to Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword.  

And the over world of Hyrule Field is the most ruthlessly lacking one of all the 3D Zeldas.  Twilight Princess usually gets more flack for this but honestly, at least there you have a few mini dungeon type things and some environmental puzzles or obstacles to reach secrets and chests.  Ocarina of Time is just a big vast void with just the ranch to break it up.  It's smaller, yeah, but it's emptier.  

Combat in OoT definitely holds up better than it has any right to for a game from a console with just one analogue stick :P.  But the Twilight Princess and Wind Waker iterations are far more polished, especially TP.

In terms of art direction, I feel every 3D Zelda has more of an identity.  That includes Majora's Mask.

Honestly, a lot of my quibbles come down I think to the game being built to PUSH the hardware in order to show off rather than maximize the potential.  Majora's Mask franklyfeels more like it did the latter.  

Anyway, those are my thoughts :P