There's a problem with the comparisons between when people didn't like the Wind Waker art-style and later loving it, and people not liking the art-style of this. With Wind Waker, the people who complained about the art-style most likely didn't realize what could be done with it as far as expressions go. The game did things like Link actively looking towards points of interest, and the art style made it incredibly obvious to the player as a subtle hint system. ("Why is Link looking over there? Oh, that seems important!") Wind Waker came out on the GameCube and the previous Zelda games were on the Nintendo 64, which I'm fairly certain would have been difficult to implement something like that, so it's understandable that expressions-as-hints wouldn't have been considered by the general public since it wasn't something that had been possible up until that point. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)
This game's art style doesn't seem to be anything more than just that, an art style. I suppose I can see what they're going for, a diorama like a child would make, arranging their toys to match the scenes from the game. Personally, I'm not a fan. I always felt that Minish Cap felt like a good next-step to the Game Boy games in their style and design, so I imagined a Link's Awakening remake using something like the HD Wind Waker Link model in a top-down camera perspective, and at the very least, rounding off the geometry to hide the grid layout a good amount. If they wanted to do a toy approach, they should have moved the camera to look something like that 3D Dot Heroes game or whatever it was called, to be able to see things in the far background while the camera still slid from area to area like the Game Boy game. It would also work since you'd see the mountains and potentially the Wind Fish Egg in the far background all the time, keeping it as a constant focus in your mind.
I will admit though, the two things that I'm really wanting to know is how the new rendition of Ballad of the Wind Fish will sound, and how DethI will look in this new art style.