I've had my Vive for a bit over a month now. It's definitely past the point of "showing off to friends" and by now I'm pretty sure VR will forever be a feature of any gaming rig I own. I've clocked about 20hrs in Elite:Dangerous, which is a bit above my monthly average, even after having the Vive setup at my company for a week so my coworkers could try it out. Playing games like Elite without VR is now a very real downgrade.
It has all the defects you could expect from a first gen device. It is also way past the point of fancy gimmick and well into routine usage hardware territory.
I played with a friends one over a couple days, and it's at the top of my must-buy list right now- I rigged up my own cardboard setup, but it's still not the real thing. Mass VR is literally right around the corner, and some of the best evidence to that is how many games are supporting it (fallout 4! WHEE) and that the newest vcards are designed for it.
I will say as a vive/rift owner (i was a kickstarter backer and got a rift for free, but the vive is where my heart is) Elite Dangerous is crazy cool, but only about 20% cooler than just using something like trackir with it.
It has all the defects you could expect from a first gen device. It is also way past the point of fancy gimmick and well into routine usage hardware territory.