Here's my thoughts too. I have a Reverb G2 and a Pico 4, never used a Quest 2, so my impressions are between those two devices.
Passthrough
The Reverb has very limited passthrough options, so my Pico is the only reasonable passthrough experience I have. The single camera with no depth correction is ok to use for either a brief moment to situate yourself in the room without having to take off the headset, or for longer times if you have something else in front taking your attention. It's not like there's a real person in front you, but it's still immersive enough to have part of that feeling. Passthrough works well when it's not the center of attention, unsurprising I think, and I suppose that a grey (Q2) or coloured passthrough (Pico) are not that much of a difference when you use it in VaM, you are paying attention to something else
Immersion
This is very subjective naturally. The green outline in the passthrough border reduces immersiveness, like when you see it in old or bad VFX in movies, and it's not a clean passthrough video like a good camera, but to compensate the sight of the place where you are gives you a boost in immersion, so you gain and lose things, and how you value some over others is what adds or takes your immersion experience.
Say you have a scene with an environment or just a black background, is that a more immersive experience than the room you're in, together with all the passthrough cons like green outline, no depth correction, etc? If you want to believe it's believable enough I think.
Improving the passthrough experience
- Better lighting in your room and VaM scene
- Use suitable scenes where passthrough can be an asset
- Chill and be creative on how you use it, it's for fun, not a dedicated AR headset
Just some quick notes on comparing a G2 to a Pico 4 overall. I'm very surprised with the lenses in the Pico 4, they're bright and the FOV that is on focus is quite good. The G2 for example, a v1, has a narrower area that you can see focused without having to move your head. However, the G2's colour and contrast is noticeably better, something I immediately noticed, and the sound too with the built-in headphones.