Got some more thoughts here, probably been said many times already but when I'm not playing this I have a strong urge to discuss it.
Firstly, I love how you get "stronger" not by levelling up but by discovering how to play better. Loot obviously plays a role to a degree but not a large one, at least it doesn't seem like it to me.
For instance, guardians. First encounter I had with one it killed me in one hit. They still kill me in one hit now too as I've still only got three hearts, however now I know I can parry their laser beam, or shoot them in the eye with an arrow and wail on them with a sword, etc. I'm no stronger than I was at the start, yet have much less trouble with them now.
Secondly, I really like how they've taken notes from other open world games and put their own spin on them. Korok seeds are the best collectible I've ever seen in an open world game. They upgrade your inventory, so there's an incentive to find them, there's nearly a thousand of them so you will definitely find a lot of them, and most importantly they require exploration and curiosity to find.
It reminds me of what CDPR did with the points of interest/monster dens in Blood and Wine, by weaving them into side quests they incentivised the player to complete them. Different aspect but same principle behind it.
Though I'm not a fan of towers in open world games, I don't hate the ones in BotW. They're not great, there's definitely ways they could've been more creative with climbing them.
However the one saving grace they have for me is that kinda make sense. Link's slots his iPad into the control panel and downloads the areas map data on to it. I wish there was more of a puzzle to climbing them but eh, can't have everything.