You're also forgetting that Zelda has fled the Castle before the Door of Time was opened, so she wouldn't be there when Link returned to the past. I suppose that could be after the execution scene we see in TP, though, when she'd returned to the Castle...

Anyway, I really, really, really like this theory. I believe I've thought of something very similar somewhere along the way, but not nearly as well thought out as this.

So, what I can gather from this is that you are saying;

1) The events that Link had performed as a child when he had 'replaced' the Master Sword had already happened by the time that he had woken from the Sacred Realm;
2) Link's body did not travel time, merely his mind, and;
3) Everything that Link did in his time travels follows the Adult Timeline.

Correct?

My thoughts on the subject:
I believe the timeline actually splits at the point where he 'returns' the Master Sword in the past, and not when Zelda 'sends him back'. I had a thought, once, that the point were we see Link walking away from the Master Sword is alternate from when Link grasps the sword for the first time. As his 'future' consciousness came back to him, he decided not to take the Sword, and instead took an alternate course of action.

It would have been logical for the 'old future' to be erased, though. Perhaps the fact that Link had not grapsed the Master Sword simply erased his presence from the future, but not everyone else's.

This, in turn, creates a paradoxial situation. If he does not pull the sword, then what will tell him not to do it? The split timeline is most probably the outcome of this; the first time, he did not know better; the second, he knew what was to come, and therefore avoided it.

I can't help but feel I got off-topic somewhere along the way...

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