I guess we just have vastly different tastes. For me Metroid Prime is the best game Nintendo has published since God knows when, maybe since OOT. And I disagree with you on DCKR, lack of vertical levels was never an issue, neither the mine world. And the blowing thing while useless is never forced on you so it's not really a problem at all.
i even have gone back on oot, which was my favorite game for at least eight years, and acknowledge that while the pacing is still excellent and the best of any 3d zelda, the level design and general world of the game does feel small and compact compared to later games in the series.
i wrote up my full thoughts on metroid prime in a novel that i posted in the neogaf review thread if you're really interested, but the short version is that the gamecube controller was something of a hindrance to the level design and despite some sequence breaking, and more interesting level design than i remembered, i felt the backtracking got annoying.
with dkcr, it's not so much the lack of vertical levels was an issue because i didn't have many of those, but it was more that it allowed for less variety in the level design. pretty much all of them were going left to right, or sometimes in the background. and while blowing was thankfully shoved in a corner somewhere, i don't like that retro had to implement it just because miyamoto wanted it there, especially since there was never a good idea that came out of it. this goes back to me hoping their next thing will be something they're passionate about and not about them trying to prove something to japan (which is what the goal of dkcr was).
Aren't you a big proponent of NSMBwii? How can you complain about samey, horizontal levels in DCKR and then praise that crap?
nsmbw had a lot of vertical levels. much of it was based off of walljumping skills and timing, often against rotating blocks. it also had a power up that allowed you to reach higher areas, as well as yoshi to keep you in the air longer. when nsmbw did motion control during platforming, it meant staying in the air longer, a sort of natural reflex of not wanting to fall down a hole. when dkcr does motion control during platforming, you roll forward, and if you want to keep doing this you keep shaking the controller, something that is not so much of a reflex to anything as much as it is something shoehorned into a series that already had a pretty good control scheme.
for the record, i really didn't like nsmb much. it's a bottom-tier nintendo platformer made from 2006-2011, alongside epic yarn and 3d land.
with zelda, or any other existing franchise, i'm worried that they'll be including stuff just because they think it has to be included. i don't want them to have to second-guess themselves. a brand new game would eliminate a lot of that (or at least a lot of that sort of second-guessing).