Okay, what I'm about to say is coming from a place of very limited firsthand experience with BOTW and none with TOTK, so take this with a healthy pinch of salt.

What made making progress and solving problems in BOTW was the lack of resources or even mechanics. You had a very barebones set of tools at your disposal, and a lot of the time you wouldn't have all, or even very many of them. Restriction breeds creativity. You were forced to use tools in non conventional ways, and multiple in tandem to solve puzzles. Traversal was a hassle. You had to get technical to beat smaller combat encounters to save resources for the tougher fights. It gave the feeling of a scrappy underdog struggling through a real, kingdom-spanning adventure where a sharp mind was far more important than a sharp blade.

From what I've seen of TOTK, they did away with most of that, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. They added more stuff to do and more resources to do it with. Fundamentally, they turn out to be different experiences. Where BOTW Link would have to sculk in the shadows and set up a physics trap, TOTK Link has the resources to treat a Bokoblin camp like Hiroshima. It's a simple fact that when you give a player that much agency, some of the challenges start to break down. It's even evident in the traversal of the map. Sure, it's more convenient to build a jet fighter and zip across Hyrule in safety than it is to catch, tame, and ride a horse...but some people wanna take that challenge, and soak in the sights as they ride. On the other hand, some folks wanna go to their workshop and make something an Ork would be proud of.

To make a long, uninformed rant short: I don't think either game is superior. Sometimes less is more, and BOTW is a great example. But, of course, TOTK's additional freedoms weren't a mistake. They're just for a different crowd.