People comment on the colors as though that alone determines the graphical style of a game. The character and enemy design is still highly influenced by Twilight Princess.
As someone who actually has a custom-made Twilight Princess Link
costume, I can guarantee that the character design has remained completely unchanged. The only thing they changed was they cel-shaded him. Mature character design with cel-shading? I'm surprised there aren't more excited anime fans out there.
And yes, Link is wearing pants. Tan-colored pants, but pants nonetheless. Notice how they lop over his boots slightly. Furthermore, in Twilight Princess, Link did have a shorter tunic than usual... that's because he was (and still is) wearing pants.
Incidentally, the style of his sword belt, shield, and sheath are also EXACTLY the same. The Hero's Bow seems to be identical to TP, too. His boots aren't shown up-close, but from this distance they look like they're the same as TP. The altered appearances I noted in the returning items were the slingshot and the bombs, but seriously, does anyone really mind that?...
As for 1:1 swordplay, I'm cautiously optimistic. THIS Zelda game is made exclusively for the Wii, so they'll be spending more time perfecting controls on the single console. In any case it looks better than TP Wii in this respect. As long as the way the moves are RENDERED stays true to Ocarina/TP (i.e. every attack is either a slash, slice, or stab), I am quite happy to give it a try.
P.S. - Found two differences. The loose end of Link's belt isn't tied in this version, and the belt buckle is grey instead of gold. Also, Link seems to be lacking the bracer he had on his sword arm in TP (neither arm has a bracer in SS -- perhaps they didn't like having a protective item that didn't do anything in-game). Lastly, some of the ornamental lines on the tunic are gone (they probably didn't render well with cel-shading). See, I told you I'd notice the tiny details.