The thing that stood out to me in following the community around Oculus over the same period of time was how consistently insiders responded to complaints that it just wasn't quite there yet with statements that it was the next version of VR that would really blow you away. The one that people could actually get in their hands at any given moment was never the True Realization of the ideal. That was always just a little bit farther down the road -- conveniently distant enough that you couldn't actually put it to the test.

DK1? "Oh, that's not REAL VR, real VR is DK2."

DK2? "Oh, that's not REAL VR, real VR is Crescent Bay."

Crescent Bay? "Oh, that's not REAL VR, real VR is the Rift consumer release."

Now we actually have the consumer release. And what's the message? "Oh, that's not REAL VR, real VR includes controls like Oculus Touch." And so the can gets kicked down the road another few months.

The continual response to underwhelmed users with "oh, you just wait till the next version!" made the whole thing start to feel less like a revolution-in-waiting and more like a faith-based enterprise. True Believers can help a company through the hard times, but they do not a mass market make.