The save system was very fitting for Skyward Sword in that it continued a trend towards increasing the difficulty of the franchise, which is something players incessantly complained about regarding Twilight Princess and the DS pair. Also, the bird statues were spaced out very evenly and in very central locations so as to make saving simple and effective.
Actually it didn't make it more difficult, just frustrating. You see, if it were to be difficult it would make a puzzle harder to figure out, or a strong boss, not a save point where you might not be able to access after finishing a difficult puzzle. It was needed in MM, because you can run out of time, but in this game it just was annoying. Not hard, but annoying. Or if I needed to leave my house in 30 mins, but I wanted to play SS, I might be late to wherever I'm going, because I didn't realize where the save point was. And I must confess, my bad sense of direction wouldn't be helping.
But I will agree with you that it wasn't
that much of a hassle, because of how evenly spaced they were, but they weren't needed. If they were gonna do something like this, they should of been needed, otherwise, its just added unneeded annoyance.