I agree, it was not very fun. It would have been much more fun to just find one copy of the elemental swords, wands, and such, and just carry around as many as you could carry and use the ones that made sense for the current battle. Even better if there were slashing versus stabbing swords which were better for certain enemies. Stuff like that.

I will say, though, even a few hours into the game it got to the point where I had too many weapons, and I very rarely ran out. Every enemy drops some. And it turns out, I didn't really mind fighting Lynels or "Major Test of Strength" guardians to get their goods weapons once every blood moon. I enjoyed how those fights were difficult and technical.

Even just adding a repair mechanic would have been great. It also would have made a lot more sense lore-wise if BotW had the "everything made of metal is degrading from a curse" that TotK had. It made sense in TotK that weapons were fragile, but not in BotW.

All in all, it was a top-design choice. They didn't want you to find one Royal Guard weapon an hour into the game and faceroll everything all game. That's one of the downsides of even having a "this sword does more damage than other swords" type weapon system. How do you even explain that lore-wise? If a sword is magical, sure, but some "Royal Guard" sword isn't automatically better than an ordinary sword of the same size, shape and also made of steel.

I broke Skyrim for myself on my first playthrough because I did dual wielding, smithing, and enchanting, maxed both of those out, and made the most insane double-enchanted dragon bone(?) swords before I finished even 1/10 of the plot. When the first dragon attack happened, I chopped it up in like 5 seconds. I was so insanely overpowered. That never happens in BotW. Even with the best weapons in the game, fighting a Silver Lynel is work!