On another note, I feel that the Zelda Team need to take a leaf out of the Galaxy team's book. The galaxy games were Mario distilled to its essence and rebuilt. They picked things that made sense to the game they were trying to make, and experimented with the rest.
Zelda has always had a certain level of bloat, included only because they are series staples. They also feel like they could always do a lot more, to whatever capacity, and I think that may be down to the team not really settling on what to put into the game.
I remember reading how the fishing hole in Ocarina was made outside of the design scope, and then popped in later when they realised it was really fun. Sure, fishing has been in Zelda before Ocarina, but they let a developer do that, and it added another minigame to the title. Can that even happen in the Zelda team's current environment? Can a developer dick about and add something in because it is fun? Probably not - the team seems too preoccupied with thinking too much.
I would really love a "reset" topdown 3DS title that acts the same way Super Mario 3D Land does for the franchise. ie, it acts as the missing link between ALttP and Ocarina.
