After you get Bombs/Magnesis/Stasis/Cryonis, finishing the three mandated shrines and getting the Paraglider, you're home free. Unlike previous Zelda games where areas were completely locked off because you don't have the Slingshot/Bow/Grappling Hook/Ball & Chain/Whatever, BoTW gives you every tool you need to beat the game in, literally, the tutorial area.
That's like saying Pokemon gives you every tool you need to complete the game before collecting all eight badges (which is entirely possible through at least three different glitches).
You are cut off from sections of the map. Either you can't swim/climb far enough (stamina-based limitations), or it's too hot/cold (equipment-based limitations), or the enemies deal like 8+ hearts in damage for one shot kills (heart-based limitations) which can by bypassed by player skill but then again can you to an 8 minute speed run of SMB3 and finish with 99 lives? No, yeah, near perfection for years of playing isn't a relevant discussion point.
Then there areas like Zora's Domain or that other one with a constant thunderstorm of auto-lightning death (boss-based limitations) and then finally the worst ones, random bullshit-limitations like rain/thunderstorm/night/bloodmoon penalties that are specifically designed to force you to stop what you're doing, detour to a safe area, painstakingly wait on a stupid fire, run all the way back, and finally resume your progress which is perhaps the most infuriating element of the game. Not even the fact that is seems the game is designed around 500 defense & 30 hearts with infinite food as the minimum prerequisite for running around on the map, but fact that I personally have to waste my time on tedious annoying crap every 20 minutes of playing. And it's the same mechanic for stamina-based limitations, go waste time playing herbalist to mix up some stamina boosts & replenishers for temporary access that'll get revoked until you waste time again.
Can you imagine if another game tried this?
* Halo 2: Stop and wait five minutes for shields edition.
* Link Between Worlds: Wait ten minutes each time you travel between the worlds edition.
* Super Mario Bros - Rename Version #247: Using pipes takes eight minutes edition.
It's a cheap shitty mechanic designed to inflate playtime. It seems it may be useful to quickly consume the time left on your +20 max heart food (a value of finding and completing eighty shrine puzzles) but you know what's a great idea? Not offering crap like that to begin with.
And btw, horses are pay-to-win. If you paid for the Amiibo you can just summon Epona for a horse with maximum stats and is perfectly tame, 100% chance of summoning on your first usage. Best of all even if she dies you can simply resurrect her or wait until she drops again from the very same Amiibo.
Nintendo's core flaw with this game is they have no understanding of their player base. Ignoring the main objective is fun because you're ignoring what the game wants you to do. Side quests are supposed to be rewarding and fun distractions. Heck speed running Metroid was awesome because you got upgrades sooner than you should. Railroading them into playing the game by actively punishing them for deviations while teasing "but you technically can have full access!" is worse than Turbine's game model with DDO.
Player knowledge continues to be the biggest limitation in all the cases you mentioned. After the three main shrines, if you want god-tier equipment, it's pretty easy and pain-free to go to the Hyrule Castle Armory + Lockup and grab end-game gear, including the Hylian Shield and Royal Guard Claymore, which you can then use to successfully one-hit-kill Moblins with Lizal Tri-Boomerangs via stealth. This is doable with NO combat, in a game where you can save-scum to your hearts content because you can save anywhere.
Of course, you need to KNOW that there's relatively easy-to-get-to god-tier equipment in those locations. Just like in Dark Souls 1 you could pretty easily get the Elite Knight set + Drake's Sword in like, 40 minutes of gameplay and kick ass until Anor Londo.
I provided various solutions to not being able to swim/climb far enough. There's Octo Balloons you can use to quite easily get to a vantage point where you can simply glide to where you want to go. Of course, certain areas of the game are MEANT to be extremely hard to reach unless you have specific equipment (Zora Tunic to swim up waterfalls/Lose less stamina while swimming), or found out alternative routes to get to.
It's, after all, an exploration game.
Seriously, what other game gives you the amount of freedom that BoTW grants you FROM THE GET GO? There's absolutely no game that gives you that amount of player agency in determining what you have to do and how you go about doing that.
Even the combat, you can sidestep a LOT of the pain by just using bombs to kill everything. Yes, it's going to take a while, but they're infinite and you don't have to deal with the bullshit of equipment breaking. The game rubs in your face that it's not the most efficient way of going about doing things, but it DOESN'T prevent you from doing that. You can even use Magnesis to swing a large boulder like a flail, and i've seen videos of people defeating silver-maned Lynels with that, and three hearts, with no stamina upgrades.
Is it going to be hard? Fuck yeah, it's going to be hard, but it's not impossible. This game *IS* hard. And the Lynels ARE hard. The game makes a point of telling you how fking strong they are. After all, unless you got god-tier equipment and 20+ hearts the silver-manes will one shot you anyway, it doesn't really matter what you use in that case. The game is gear-oriented, but it's also HEAVILY skill-based. In fact, i'd wager this new Zelda is even more skill-oriented than Dark Souls is. Yes, there are one shots, and yes, you will learn to move quickly, dodge, parry, and otherwise git gud if you're going to survive. The combat is brutal. But so were SNES games like Contra, where you died in one hit to everything, and people still cleared those games. AND this game does not require you to clear screens of foes before moving to the next screen. You don't even need to fight most of the time, or you can do it cleverly and with minimal risk to yourself.
And i disagree, fully, with you in that the game requires you to have 30+ hearts and an inventory full of food with 500 defense to explore the map. You can run away. You DON'T need to kill everything.
In fact, the Blood Moon event, with the respawning of the enemies, just rubs that in your face. You're NOT going to clean the world up before fighting Ganon. The only way you can end the malice in the world is by defeating the BBEG. But, go ahead and kill things if it makes you happy. But it's not doing the world any good. I don't think you need years and years of practice just to get the skill required to sidestep the limitations put by the game. You can sneak, you can fly out of reach, you can freeze + leaf enemies away... There are several ways to sidestep combat entirely in this game. See the Eventide Island portion of my point above.
The Hot/Cold stuff... It's pretty easy to cook food in this game, and the effects last a long time. It's not hard to craft a potion to resist cold/fire and have it last 15 minutes. You just need to gather 5 of the ingredient that grants the resistance and cook that. It's not even hard. And there's even a chance you'll have a critical in the cooking and get a boosted effect. So you just do some pre-planning before your trip and go and do it. It's even realistic. You're not going to go to a cold-ass place before packing in your winter clothes. You're not going to the beach in heavy plate armor, you're going in shorts, or, at least, you're bringing in plenty of cold coconut water or what have you.
In summary... BoTW is pretty fucking brutal. It's hard. You'll feel like you don't have what it takes to get from A to B without going through C or D. But then you'll realize, you could've. You could've gone from A to B and the only thing is, you didn't know enough about the game to realize that, so you went through a slightly longer route. Then you play again, and you do things differently. Do it better. Learn through doing.
This is what BoTW is about, and why it is such a great game, and why Open World games need to learn with it. It really makes you think about your choices, and it really makes you try stuff out in order to learn. The immersion is staggering... Even after you get god-tier equipment, there's still stuff that can kill you. Even after you get Mipha's Blessing and have a continue, it's still hard. You're never completely safe. There's not a single point in the game where you cease to be vulnerable. You're just less so. And the attention to detail, hundreds of hours into the game, you're still learning new stuff about the world, the enemies, and what you can do. I suspect a year, or two years from now, people will still be discussing new tricks you can do.
What other game can boast such achievements in such a short period of time?
I shudder to think of a 6th Elder Scrolls that takes the lessons given by BoTW and mixes in the ability of player modding. It'll suck the life out of people.