They promised that the game was over 75 hours. I finished the Cave of Ordeals last night and clocked in at just under 50 hours (like 49:55 or so). I haven't done any of the fishing other than what is necessary, that could add many hours easily. The "Rollgoal" mini-game is a silly little thing but it's a neat way of using the sensors in the remote, that could add a few more. Also, I admit to looking at a FAQ to track down 15 of the 60 poes, so looking for them without help might add some time considering you can only find them at night (and there's no song that changes day to night like in OoT) so you can easily miss some of them. Similarly I looked at a FAQ for some of the Golden Bugs. (Heart Pieces are actually a cinch to look for in this game since there's a person who tell you almost exactly where to find them.)
I suppose a seven-and-a-half hour run is technically possible, but that's for the Zelda fanatics who can get by with the absolute minimum. (I'm not a fan of speed runs that are more than a few hours...I imagine it's a lot of pressue on the gamer that does them. I did Resident Evil in just under 3 hours on my first and only speedrun to unlock everything (2:59:07), but I don't have the skill or patience to redo it without an emulator to get it under the coveted one-hour mark.) I got the Hero's Clothes/Green Tunic at 3:00, cleared the first dungeon at 4:55, and made it to the bridge duel at 7:01. 7:30 would be pure efficiency, and while it might be interesting to see certain dungeons and boss battles in little time, I wouldn't want to watch or play the whole thing.
Geography is an interesting subject, Terra, especially considering that when they ported the GameCube version to the Wii, the easiest way for them to adapt the sword controls for the right-handed majority was to flip Link. But instead of just flipping the character model (which would also require changing a lot of animations and interactions with non-symmetrical things) they simply mirrored the entire world, a point of controversy among Zelda purists who believe that every Link must be left-handed and that the original vision of Hyrule should have been preserved. I assume that's one reason Zeric mentions the GameCube version, where east and west and left and right are where they originally were.
I'd recommend the Wii version if you have any intention of purchasing a Wii at all, not only for the Wii controls (which, though not as major as I'd hoped, are still an improvement), better graphics (not by much, but still!), 16:9 widescreen (if you have a widescreen TV), and to support epic games on the Wii (not that there's anything wrong with Wii Sports, Wario Ware: Smooth Moves, Rayman: Raving Rabbids, Mario Party 8, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, etc.).
