Ironically, one game that’s handled open worlds a bit better is on a console less capable of handling them.

This is even more interesting when we consider that BotW was not developed for the Switch, but for an even less capable console: the Wii U.

Hardware limitations haven’t been a real barrier to open world continuity for a long time, if ever. (Seven Cities of Gold allowed you to sail from Europe to the New World, and explore it over land, with no loading screens along the way. That was on 8-bit computers with 48KiB of RAM, loading data from some of the slowest floppy drives ever, back in 1984.) Doing it on lower-end machines does require some planning ahead, but the effort is worthwhile, IMHO.

Breath of the Wild uses it to promote exploring towards vantage points and then interesting sights.

Not only that, but to incorporate verticality into the game mechanics. Reaching things that are surrounded by hazards, or taming especially wild horses by gliding to them from a cliff, for example.