It helps that Wind Waker is still a proper Zelda game. Like, people always act like its just the art style that people turned around on, but there is a lot more to it.

Because after WW we had Twilight Princess, which was marred hard by its linearity, "one use" items, and heavy cutscene focus. But then its Skyward Sword, the motion control demo, and Breath of the Wild, a game that barely resembles any of the other games in the series.

So a lot of the reason people went back and liked it a lot more is because its exactly the type of game they enjoyed in the first place, instead of a lot of "its good...but" addendums.