I think part of your perspective may be from your age.  I'm assuming you didn't grow up on Zelda 1?  As someone a good decade older, I grew up on the original NES Zeldas and then Zelda 3 on SNES.  Especially with the first two the role of items were much different than in the modern 3D Zeldas.  In those games you didn't necessarily NEED an item to finish or enter a dungeon.  And the location of a dungeon wasn't obvious either.  You would wander the country side, find an old tree or a cave or something and check it out.  You might find that it was too tough, or that something would make it easier, but that was part of the excitement of exploration in Hyrule.  It wasn't on a linear structure.  And each level wasn't necessarily designed around an item like they have been lately.  You might find that the dungeon had enemies that were easier to kill with a boomerang or that you could get through a dark room much easier with a candle, but you could try without it.  There were exceptions, such as the dungeon that needed the raft to access or ladder to enter, but the world was for the most part open for you to explore and challenge as you saw fit.

Your assuming that with this new model that game design would be sacrificed, but I see it as the opposite. Instead of an obvious dungeon where you go in get a bow and arrow and then have to figure out a puzzle using it (hmm... a locked door...what should I do? Oh wait, I know, shoot an arrow at something!) perhaps they will create multiple ways to solve it.  Maybe some items make it easier, some tougher but in the end the choice is with the player to try and figure out for themselves.  That's what sandbox games should be about, and Zelda is the original sandbox game.

Was thinknig same thing.  I'll have an awesome collection going then

1. Zelda wiimote from skyward sword

2. Mario Wiimote

3. Luigi Wiimote

Any other great wiimotes out there?

Also now I need a blue and red nunchuk to go with luigi and mario wiimotes, since I have gold nunchuck for zelda one.  

Wonder when I'll fold and buy the zelda limited Wii U.  That gamepad is just too damn tempting.

True.

Old zelda games:

*No handholding

*More experimantation

*More sandbox

*More non-linear

*In Medias Res

*Shitload of enemies on screen at the same time

*At times it was super intense 

This Zelda isn't an Aonuma-style Zelda. THIS Zelda is a Miyamoto-style Zelda. 

To be fair to the 3-D games, having a ton of enemies on the screen at the same time was impossible/unfeasible during the N64's day. The first real-time game that ran at least 30fps, wasn't on-rails and featured a bunch of enemies consisting of more than one polygon that you can think of is probably the only one. Majora's Mask needed the expansion pack, and it's not like that game ever threw a bunch of significant enemies at you at once.

Things didn't get much better with the 128-bit era either (throwing the Wii in there too), but with Aonuma's focus on making the games easier for casual players and newcomers, I doubt they would have unleashed the horde on Link if they had the power to.

With Hero Mode open from the start on WWHD and non-linearity a focus in ALBW, I'm getting the feeling Nintendo is finally getting back to taking care of longtime Zelda fans. I didn't enjoy Zelda 1, 2 and ALttP so much for their dungeon designs as I did the feeling of actually having to survive like a mo'fo' and make the most of the resources I was given. I felt like I was John McClain in Die Hard, and damn did it feel good to ass kicked a few times before finally figuring it out. I'm like Dengle, I don't see what all the fuss for non-linearity is about, but if they have to make the dungeon designs easier in the process, then they better make everything else tougher and less forgiving to make up for it.