They do work for those games, I just personally don't like that style very much for Zelda, apart from Wind Waker which dove straight into the cartoon vibe. Skyward Sword tried to have it's feet in both camps and it ended up being pretty forgettable to a lot of people.
The original few Zelda games were far more serious than these days. Now we have things like clowns, trains, robots, Tingle etc. I dunno, I just wish they would reboot and go back to the vibe of the NES and SNES games, for at least one game.
I replayed Zelda II quite recently, one of my favourite games of all time. You really felt like you were on an epic journey, moving from one area to the next without any backtracking (well unless you game over). Nowadays the "exploration" tends to be based around a conveniently centred hub world, Hyrule Field, with branching paths to the various themed locations. The sky/overworld in SS was the worst offender of all, it was an utter joke. I really hope Zelda U brings the series back to its roots.