Personally, I don't find VR to be interesting at all, and expect it to be a large flop. Like, as bad as Virtua boy size. I can't think of anything appealing about it.
Have you experienced virtual "presence" yet?
So the arcade/installation I talked about earlier - it was a 5m x 20m room in an old textiles factory.
In the VR world, this space was marked in white lines on the floor, so you know not to step into a physical wall. Larger virtual spaces were created by fading to black between sections.
In this small, bare warehouse room, I have genuine memories of exploring hundreds of meters of rooms in a monster infected industrial complex. My brain genuinely remembers being present in a place that never existed. I remember poking my gun around corners and spraying wildly to avoid stepping through a doorway, or being afraid for my ankles when walking past desks, so choosing to crawl. When rushed by a horde, I dropped to a knee so my partner wouldn't shoot me, but before I knew it, I was sitting on my arse, legs flailing out in front to push me away from the claws swinging at my face.
No other video game has ever given me memories like that. Real memories, from my own perspective, from my own body - memories in the category of "things that actually happened to me".
The closest other experience I've had was a LARP type event, with actors playing drill sergents and spec ops, and 100 playing zombies, in full film-grade make up. We were suited up with vests, helmets, a radio, RFID passes and a replica M4, and sent through a derelict factory that a film set and lighting crew had dressed as an overrun medical facility. It was liie actually being in a zombie apocalypse film, fighting, fleeing, saving or killing other survivors (NPCs), hiding in vents, fumbling for RFIDs to get through doors, decyphering clues and fighting giant mutated bosses... All for real. Now THAT was the greatest gaming experience I've had... But it was so awesomely over the top that it bankrupted the overly ambitious production company and I don't expect anyone to ever attempt such a stupid business model again (there are pale imitators if you're really keen to shoot some zombies, but honestly they're not even playing the same sport, let alone being in the same ball park).
VR has let 3 indies in an empty warehouse match that mark for me already.
No, I haven't experienced virtual presence, but it just doesn't sound interesting to me as consumer. I could see it having uses similar to what you mentioned, or training applications (On the job training), but as a consumer who just wants to sit in a chair and use a mouse/keyboard, I can't see myself using any other input/output.
.
