It's difficult to buy into these two being friends, let alone having romantic feelings for each other when Link (in cutscenes at least) just blankly stares at everything. Previous Links at least had appropriate facial expressions and reactions to things.
Having expressions and reactions would mean committing the character to a personality, and not everyone might like what it is. No personality = nothing to dislike = universal appeal. Even his gender is non-committal, and the game even jokes about it.
