I agree with you. TOTK (and other open world games) on the Switch is an unpleasant experience. The hardware just isn’t capable of it

I do however think the developers did put some effort into attempting to mitigate the underperforming hardware - hence the seeming emptiness of the world. It just wasn’t enough. There are games that run well on the Switch - Metroid Prime Remastered is incredible, for example, but we must ask why: the answer is that that game’s world consists of a large number of small rooms, basically the polar opposite of an open world design.

Art style trumps graphical fidelity, but you do need a decent baseline capability to be able to pull it off.

Also, if you enjoyed TOTK don’t let me ruin your fun - it’s a subjective thing. Just don’t tell me there’s objectively no problems with it, because there clearly are