You shot nothing down, your counter-argument is that besides shrines and Korok seeds there is also armor. And a camera and rune upgrades (both of which you get early in the main quest). And this somehow makes for a great reward structure? I'm still exploring these bazillion square miles of land and still only finding shrines ( 0.5% of them have an armor piece in them, see I'm not forgetting) and Korok seeds, am I not?
Bomb bags, arrow storage and Biggoron sword of run-three-times-across-the-map-for-something-useless? Yeah, I've felt rewarded far more by BotW due to the game sparing me this bullshit. See an enemy with a big weapon? Kill it, take weapon, enjoy reward. Inventory slots actually have universal use in the game, due to weaponry being thankfully no longer inseparably attached to the character, so Koroks have universal use in the game's reward structure.
Then there's the reward of seeing a glowing mountaintop at night, traveling there and finding a well with a spirit beast you can tame and ride. Or making your way through a snowy mountain, finding some strange doors, figuring out how to bust them open and finding a huge ice cavern with fossile bones and a shrine. The shrines are the better variant of heart pieces BTW.. They have a challenge attached, either through NPC side quest, traversal 'puzzle', combat or outright puzzle setup. And four make a heart. Or a stamina upgrade, so there's actually depth due to choice, based on playtime and need. Beats heart pieces in every possibly conceivable way.
Optional cool things to find that actually help to build the world, more than anything did in previous 3d Zeldas. That is, if you're not preoccupied wishing the game really only let you carry ten bombs, then find some random character asking you to do stuff for him to give you a bigger bag, so you could carry - *gasp* - 20 bombs.