I think a lot of the hate for the motion controls in SS are coming from people who didn't put much time at all into the game, nonetheless beat the story.
I put 112 hours (from what I remember from the in-game clock) into the main story, got 100%/did everything sans bothering with Hero Mode.
After that I went and did misc. things I forgot to, like upgrade all satchels/bags, etc. and the grand total time was around 125 hours.
At first, I was not excited to play with the forced motion controls. I was one of the people that went and waited for the Gamecube version of Twilight Princess so I could play with a traditional controller, mind you (the motion controls in TP Wii were probably nowhere near as good as with WM+ in SS anyway).
But once I got started playing and got the sword, I was immersed. It was one of the most fun things I've done in a game for quite some time. Just twisting the WM+ remote and Link twisting the sword, slashing in different directions from different directions, both my arms extending outward and Link doing the spin attack, etc...it all felt so satisfying and fluid. I didn't mind it one bit and never had any issues with it, even on low battery (I went through about 7 pairs of batteries over the course of my playthrough, but I'm an exception because I really got my enjoyment out of it and explored every nook and cranny and then some). When the cursor/reticule got out of alignment, simply pressing down on the D-pad to center was more than enough to fix it.
Some say motion controls break the immersion, but the opposite was true here in my experience. Even the flying controls were fine and you felt more "in the moment" due to the motion. Sure, this kind of thing definitely should not now be applied to every other game because it works well here, though the developers have designed the flow and pace of SS to work well with the motion.
As for the game itself, I think it's one of the best 3D Zelda games, second to OoT and MM. Especially for the incredible significance to the Zelda timeline and the goosebump-inducing revelations and subtle hints and non-spoken things that link to key elements in future game in the timeline.
With that said, it'd be interesting playing it with a standard controller, but I appreciate what the developers have done with the WM+ and this game. Coming from years of not being so "wowed" by motion control games, this was one of the first that did it very well in my eyes.
I took the entire month of March (and a little into April) to complete Skyward Sword. Upon completion, I immediately documented my thoughts on the adventure. And that's the thing...a true adventure is what it was. Few games these days will capture us and have us forget the world we're living in, to be completely immersed in the world we see on the screen...is something many have been missing since childhood/early teens. SS is the first game in years to do that, because I threw aside all notions that any other game existed, and focused solely on one game, until I completed it. And it didn't matter if it took a few days to complete or a few weeks or a few months. Whatever it took naturally.
You can read the thread linked below and continue the discussion if you want, too.
LTTP || Zelda: Skyward Sword || and my vacation from the evil HD consoles [SPOILERS]
I await the next mainline Zelda title with open arms, especially for where it would take place in the timeline (some rumors point to around Link to the Past), whether it be the 3DS title or Wii U title. If they happen to use motion controls again, I wouldn't have a problem with it. Skyward Sword, besides the motion controls, has proved the Zelda team knows what they're doing, even if it's not hitting 'revolutionary' levels we saw with LTTP and OOT/MM for example.