I wouldn't really like to go the experience point way, but something that goes along the lines of Devil May Cry 3 wouldn't be a bad addition. For those who don't know, in Devil May cry 3 you set your fighting style from one of three choices. When you set it to that fighting style you get to do different things with your weapons and enemy's react differently depending on your fighting style. I wouldn't mind having styles in Zelda such as Brawler, long-range, Defender, Stealth etc.

Zelda has had leveling up before though, in the games you could upgrade many of your items such as your sword, sheild, boomerang, arrow capacity, bomb capacity and more. Keeping a level up system like this is fine, the players can't spend hours just leveling up so they can defeat the boss in one hit.