As a Nintendo sheep who was pretty emotional about XBox getting this AND NOT US I of course never played this but now that I'm older gotta confess I always wanted to. The thing is, that from what I watched through Lets-Plays, its a weird mix of genres that might not always work out (plus might have really played with very different expectations from fans).

BUT if I look at a game like Breath of the Wild but also prior games like minecraft and Skyrim, I believe something about Nuts&Bolts might have been ahead of its time as I think a DLC for BotW that would let you craft your own vehicle to traverse the world would have been superfun in this open world that has a big emphasis on this mix of openess, physics and have-it-your-wayism. So I would adore an open worlds Banjo Kazooie game where they'd add a Nuts&Bolts Addon. I believe they should still focus on an actual platformer if they'd get back with that franchise, but as a DLC it could work perfectly fine.

Valcoholic, yes, I would agree the game was ahead of its time. Now a days there's actually quite a few vehicle building games where you have to design a vehicle to accomplish some very specific task such as Besiege, Scrap Mechanic, or Instruments of Destruction. These games tend to be more focused on accomplishing a specific challenge (traverse a difficult path or destroy this castle) and tend to not have big open worlds that half work like this one did. It's interesting though, because I do think they all lack something that this one had. A little bit more of a chaotic energy, perhaps? This messy game has some charm in its sloppiness.