I'm neutral as well, I dont think it's boring but i don't think it's fun eiher, it's nothing innovative or special about so it makes me wonder why they put it in the game.
Well, now is probably not a good time for me to answer this question, considering I just completed the most grueling portion of the game thus far. That is,
trying to dowse to find the five shards of the Earth Temple key.
That was the most annoying, frustrating portion of a game I've experienced in a really long time. See, the dowsing is really nice... when you're only dealing with one level or floor. When there are different levels of elevation, dowsing is just incredibly inaccurate. Not to mention that it was incredibly difficult to dowse accurately due to the gigantic mountains I couldn't actually see around. Although, I have to admit, if it weren't for dowsing, I would have definitely cracked and started using a walkthrough to attempt to find the shards. It wasn't the dowsing that was frustrating, it was the actual locating and reaching the shards.
I don't use dowsing often, but because it has actually helped me (and prevented me from using a walkthrough like I always do), I'd probably say I love it. It's an interesting new mechanic, but one I think fits Skyward Sword nicely. Many aspects of SS are more technologically advanced, like the Beetle and Fi herself. It's only fitting that Fi, who sounds like an actual robot, could come up with something as techy as dowsing. I won't vote until I finish the game, but as it stands, dowsing is quite convenient and I'll probably be grateful for it later on.
I really like it, although I do agree with Nicole on the 5 key shards being really frustrating. I had to go to the Sheikah Stone for help finding those things. It's really nice and kind of fun to use, but it was overused in that instance.
Dowsing is a great ability yadda yadda yadda, my problem with it is that it essentially IS a walkthrough, in game. Points you to every single thing that is able to be dowsed, and that mainly includes all important quest related items. Again, it's a great ability, but it feels like I'm cheating. Odd sorta way to put it, really.
I don't think that the dowsing is bad, but I don't really think that it's good either. I mean, I feel that its used WAY too much. Like when you have to find the key shards, the entrances to the Silent Realms, or even Zelda, Nintendo overdid it with the dowsing, IMO. So I'm neutral.
I didn't much care for Dowsing i tried not to use it as much as I could. The five key shards was confusing but later on once i had completed the game and was using it to find Goddess cubes it was still very annoying. Especially in the forest region, the dowsing will take you to another portion of the forest and then point you back the way you came which was very confusing and frustrating.... then i defeated Demise and lost my save file to Hero Mode without finding that cube.. havent played SS since...
I have mixed feelings about dowsing after completing my second playthrough of the game. I find it's helpful in pointing you in the right direction without spelling out exactly what you have to do, but at other times I don't feel like it's necessary. In my second playthrough, I didn't dowse very much since I memorized the locations of some dowsing targets, but I did occasionally dowse as a sort of checklist for Goddess Cubes, for example, so I still found it moderately useful. There were even a couple points on my first playthrough where I found dowsing targets without actually dowsing, such as...
finding the generators that open the Lanayru Mining Facility.
It makes the game to easy, simple as that. Would be better if a single quest or a portion of the game had it maybe, but as a feature that you have the entire game to track down alot of different things is just way to overkill.
Hating it is abit over the line, but Im not a big fan of it.
I thought it was an interesting new feature, but I wasn't crazy about it, so I said neutral! ^^ I think it actually made the game easier (sometimes too easy) than its predecessors. So interesting, but I think more puzzles involved would have worked a little more in its favor!