Yeah Deku Sticks in OoT were super busted if you knew the math behind them, which few did because they were just shelved the moment you stopped needing them for puzzles. One of those "path of least resistance is already harder" situations.

And if you made sure to avoid the situations that would auto replace/unequip your sticks, you could continue to use the broken one and it did the same increased damage. So you weren't even technically losing a bunch to exploit them.