Personally, Phantom Hourglass is about third on my list of favorites.  Link to the Past just nailed down the best possible Zelda, in my opinion.  It felt huge (moreso than Twilight Princess, where they seemed awfully focused on things being 'big'), there was a ton of stuff to do, and almost all of it was a blast.  There was also a lot less "Okay, I got this item in this dungeon, so that's what I use to beat this boss" going on.  The boss of Turtle Rock, in particular, stands out as a good fight, and an impressive looking boss.

I wish Phantom hourglass hadn't gone all stylus for the sake being all stylus.  Movement and sword attacks would have worked a lot better on the old d-pad and button combo.  The sub-weapons, though ... man, that's what the touch screen was MADE for.

Anybody else notice that Zelda games have a "Main game -> spinoff -> repeat" thing going on?  

In Zelda, you get the triforce, fight Ganon, rescue the princess.  In The Adventures of Link, you have to run around lighting up crystals, using a completely different system, and eventually fight yourself, to wake up the princess.

In LttP, fight ganon, rescue princess, get triforce.  In Links Awakening, you collect songs to wake up the wind fish to get home, and the controls are shifted up a bit.

Ocarina of Time?  Ganondorf, princess, Triforce.  Majora's mask?  Collect masks, more masks, a few more masks, help people in Bizarro-Hyrule, time travel, and eventually put the moon back in the sky.

Wind Waker?  A bit different, true, but you still end up getting the Triforce, fighting Ganondorf, and rescuing the Princess(' descendant).  And in phantom hourglass?  You run around to collect the stuff to explore the dungeon to find the places to collect more stuff to get deeper in the dungeon to find the stuff to make the weapon to destroy the evil dark ... thing.

So, Hope you aren't too tired of the Twilight princess style.  We've got a spinoff coming.