Refresh my memory, someone who knows, what the status of this item is, whether it is in progress, popularly denied, or on the mile long to-do list.
I've been thinking about it a bit, and realistically, all we really have to do to make it work is to create the sprites for an alternate Link, a rabbit, groundhog, corn flake, whatever, then create a screen flag which triggers the change in tilesets and disables the use of all items, much like a bubble does for your sword. Whenever the player enters such a screen, the tileset would change, and the player would become virtually helpless until they either receive the pearl or exit to a non-flagged screen.
This has all probably been said before, so I doubt I've added anything new to the discussion. This thread is probably just to satisfy my curiousity.