I just finished this. I will say it seemed fairly well balanced throughout. There were a couple bugs I found, so I'll start with those.
1) The level 8 boss stays dead if you blow the whistle and die before killing all the parts and return, thus giving you the HC and allows access to the triforce piece.
2) In 9, if you take the left path at the start, there is a red bubble that takes away your items with no corresponding blue bubble to get items back in the room after exiting the stairs.
I did the levels out of order. Which is awesome because that's something I like about the original game. I did them in this order; 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 7, 8, 6, 9. I also didn't get the blue ring until I was about to enter level 6 because I couldn't find it, which I feel stupid for not looking where it is. I'm fairly certain I would have quit if I would have tried to do level 1 first. It seemed like it would be a bit too difficult for a level 1 with the wooden sword, green tunic, and 3 hearts. I'll admit I just did the levels in the order I found them.
I didn't fully explore levels 6, 7, or 9. I couldn't figure out how to get to the bottom left section of level 6 (I had the magic key so I didn't need all the keys at this point). Level 7 would have left me horribly confused with all the stair paths I kept finding and I didn't want to deal with drawing a map on paper (though I found the book at least). Level 9 I just didn't want to hunt for the red ring since I didn't need it. I also didn't find the Red Candle, which I assume is in level 6 or 7.
I don't know if it was necessary, but I ended up buying 2 keys to get the Magic Key because I couldn't find anymore keys in the dungeon with it. I don't know if I just missed the keys or if that was intentional.
In terms of difficulty, I would say that it's generally more difficult than the second quest. There are a plenty of rooms where you're required to kill things to continue, either to get a key or to open a shutter door (though not too many). The original second quest could be done with only getting a handful of keys and mostly just running past a lot of rooms. Being forced to fight increases difficulty, especially when there are shooters in enough of those rooms. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it's just an observation. I'll admit I was getting annoyed by the shooters in the later boss rooms mostly because they're shooting at you from everywhere. I never actually felt the need to use a potion either, though I did die 14 times throughout as a result of that.
The overworld secrets were a little lack luster. Most of them seemed to be in the same place as either the 1st or 2nd quest. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed there were more door repair charges than rupee gain secrets (I wish I had counted). The choice between bait and shield was a good touch, as was the placement of the magic sword. I didn't understand what the 2 guys that said "secrets were far" were trying to say.
The new enemies didn't change things a whole lot. I think the only one that caught me off guard was the shooting darknut. Otherwise they were mostly just slightly more difficult versions of what they were pretending to be. You may want to change their drops too since they all seemed to drop a lot of hearts, even the upgraded Keese and Like-Likes (which I feel shouldn't drop anything).
I can't rate it in comparison to other entries since this is the first I've played. But, it was an enjoyable experience. It feels that it could actually work on an original NES.
And zcfan, if you want the white sword, you'll need to unleash your inner pyromaniac.
edit: I did level 1 with 3 hearts and the wooden sword. It's a lot easier than it initially seemed when I went through it totally overpowered. Granted, I knew where stuff was, but not knowing probably wouldn't have made much difference.
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