Where are the Nintendo ninjas when you need them?

Yeah it was a complete visual remake. It was more comparable to the Crash and Spyro remasters.

Same thing happened to me with some douche claiming actual Zelda music in my video because of a lame Zelda remix they uploaded. Nintendo themselves didn't claim anything.

I think back then most people weren't even aware of issues like this (no Digital Foundry existed to teach them what to look for). They simply enjoyed their games without a point of reference.
That's why they have no memories of these issues existing.

If this continues to be the norm I may buy more physical games after being all digital on Switch.

I wouldn't expect too much from HDR on an LCD display. In order to achieve the bright highlights it blows up the dark tones as well, because the whole panel is backlit, which is not gonna be very pleasant to look at. Unless Nintendo uses some kind of tech like Micro-LED with many dimming zones.

Thanks for implementing filoppi's amazing hdr mod into the game, but is there any chance you will make the 3 different hdr modes (classic, balanced and modern) not hidden in the config file anymore, but selectable in the game menu?