I think you're entirely right. As other people have said, we're forgetting the previous VR boom, and also the various times Hollywood has tried to make 3D films stick. 3D TVs are currently flagging in sales. In my cupboard of "tech that was once must-have", I have a Kinect, a Wii Fit, a dancemat, and an NVIDIA 3D shutter-glasses set. I suspect VR will end up there too.
I'd say the big issue with 3D films is that the '3D' is simply not good nor ubiquitous enough to justify buying and then wearing a geeky headset, or an expensive 3D TV. Not to mention the fact that there's a huge difference between full 3D in a rendered environment and semi-3D on a flat screen. And while I know very little about the previous VR boom, I suspect there were some significant issues that only recently have been solved (FPS, nausea, device size and price?).
In the same way that it took phone functionality as a trojan horse to mass tablet adoption, gaming might finally make 3D development gain critical mass with consumers.
To be fair, I haven't ever tried one so I can't comment on the experience itself. But from what I've heard, the developments in VR have scaled significant hurdles that make it something exciting and viable.
I think history has shown that sometimes seemingly-small developments in 'input' or 'output' can have a huge effect: fingers for touch screens (one of the biggest reasons for the iPhone's success, I think), a mouse and a GUI for computers (initially gathering dust in a research lab, if my history is correct), and arguably even something like retina displays.
Very often we underestimate the value of these developments, especially us geeks who are right on top of things and follow the small increments: "iPhone? I had a PDA x years ago (stylus though, but that's a minor detail)," or "tablet? it's just a bigger touch phone!"
(apologies for mostly using Apple as an example. I'm sure there are many others, but these just spring to mind.)
