Link to the Past was the first Zelda game I played when I was young, since the SNES was my very first gaming system(back at a time when rewinding the game and save states were unheard of). I played it on the SNES Classic, but didn't make much progress; I only got up to the second dungeon(although I may revisit it in the future), since I found it doesn't hold up as well as Ocarina.
That said, you raise some good points, and I do recognize that Link to the Past and Ocarina have similar two-act structures and interconnected mirror worlds. It's also a step up in complexity from the original game, particularly the multi-floor dungeons and items that you need to solve puzzles and defeat the bosses. I found the story surprisingly good for an early Zelda game, especially the fact that you start out with a clear goal of rescuing the princess, and that Hyrule Castle does a good job of providing an exciting opening level.
In short, while I like Ocarina more, Link to the Past was a key step in the series' evolution.
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A Nostalgia-Free Positive Opinion
Very little can turn me off something faster and harder than the perception that it's beloved entirely by bitter snobs, trapped decades in the past and sneering at the modern world for letting the plebs into the clubhouse. I preface the review with this information so that you can understand, I came in mildly primed to dislike A Link to the Past, as someone onboarded by Ocarina of Time, and ended up enjoying myself more than I expected, even as someone who liked A Link Between Worlds.
While the movement can sometimes feel picky, fussy, and sluggish, meaning more than a few puzzles that rely on tight platforming are harder than they were probably intended to be, I have to first give props for the relative density of fun stuff to do in the sprawling and interconnected overworld. Plus, while some bits are still a little obtuse for my tiny, modern-gaming brain, I was pleasantly surprised by how many of them weren't, and how basic exploration and paying attention meant I could save myself a fair bit of fuss and get some pretty nice and powerful stuff, while not being so sprawling that it didn't feel achievable.
I also appreciate (which is different from liking) how the game manages to keep up a certain amount of challenge in later dungeons, once you've gotten a fair few armor and weapon upgrades in you and have access to powerful items that make basic combat much more manageable, usually by having bottomless pits (or worse, all-too bottomed pits that make you start the level over from earlier on) everywhere and enemies (including bosses!) with high-knockback attacks. And it's interesting seeing magic as something powerful and critical to success (the Cane of Byrna can trivialize boss fights after it and the fire and ice rods are both critical to certain challenges) after being more familiar with it as a situational afterthought in later titles. It's enough that I never went without blue potion once I'd unlocked it.
But one area where the game deserves a fair bit of credit is storytelling. While few characters are terribly complex, most of them still manage to get across a basic sense of personality, and even the ones who don't can share some interesting backstory tidbits for this period in console history. I don't agree that everything Ocarina did, this game did first and better, but I can definitely see a missing link (heh) between it and the 3D titles, particularly in the structure of "do three dungeons, plot twist, now do eight more."
The dungeons themselves are... fine. They do tend to have gimmicks, even if many of said gimmicks aren't always fun in practice, so they at least have their own sense of identity and personality, and their dungeon treasures almost always feel fun and rewarding, like they're changing the game. It's also interesting how the Big Key is necessary to pick them up, a twist I didn't see coming at first.
All of that said, I did come in playing on the Virtua Console, or whatever the Nintendo in-house emulator is called, and while I didn't need to rewind time a few moments to undo a crucial mistake often, I did do it, and I did it more as the game went on. Some of the more annoying parts of the design were less so when I had the power to reverse them quickly and easily at my fingertips. But I'd still recommend it overall to fans of the newer titles, with the caveat that it might still take some getting used to.