This game is just incredible.
90 hours in, 2 dungeons done, 50ish shrines, just under half the map uncovered. I'm having such a great time taking each region in turn and it's so exciting knowing there's another 7 or 8 towers/areas still to uncover. I can't imagine unlocking the whole map in one go at the very beginning, I'm sure people who did that enjoyed it, but personally I could never play it like that.
What I find interesting is that whilst it really is 'go anywhere, do anything', the game definitely tries to lead you a certain way. A lot of the regions have a very clear entrance point, and I also suspect most people will have gone east from the Plateau, to Kakariko, then to Hateno, then south filling in the bottom part of the map. Just a feeling, could be wrong of course.
The latest little touch to make me grin was noticing that an ice block was melting because I was carrying a fire sword.
The regions with the dungeons in them feel like traditional Zelda, a town with lots of sidequests and story missions, cutscenes, new abilities etc, and the rest of the regions feel like they brought the overworld of the original Legend of Zelda into 3D and modernised it. Magic.