You're saying the same thing.
Besides, remember, people criticized WW's art style because it was so radically different from what OoT and MM had established. At the time OoT was being released, all we had was LoZ, AoL, LttP, and LA, and WW's art style is probably more congruous with those games so I don't think people would've been like "oh what the hell is this cel-shaded stuff." They would've been amazed by it because we didn't have graphics like that at all in 1998. That kind of art style would've been ahead of its time.