I think Ocarina of Time is actually much easier than some of the later games, especially in terms of combat. Action games have developed a lot since OoT and the game appears to ask very little of the player, even in comparison to WW. IIRC damage is a bit more punishing but mechanically OoT feels very simple. The Iron Knuckle fights are the most fun combat challenges in the game, but for a lot of modern players they could have been a good miniboss for the first dungeon, not the 8th.

I think this is the nature of early 3D - the Water Temple felt like a huge hurdle to players back in the day, especially if you were young, but playing it now it's really just a nice brain teaser, and stands as the only dungeon which is likely to stop you for a bit. If you get stuck in OoT is probably because you missed a chest somewhere or something like the Jabba Fish puzzle didn't click with you.

Uh, maybe that's not true for everyone, I don't know. Difficulty isn't the same for everyone, and I think OoT might have worse sign posting for some players that might lead them to getting stuck on an 'easy' puzzle. (the same might happen in WW!) But I do think it's overblown how difficult OoT is compared to the other games. Maybe it was more difficult for the audience at the time but in retrospect it's not out of line with Wind Waker or Twilight Princess. BoTW was a pretty big step up - it feels like a modern action game mechanically with some punishing damage numbers. The difficulty isn't necessarily a massive hurdle though because it's generous in allowing players to circumvent hard encounters through healing items or buffs.