fathergll Yes, the overall quality is a step up, and it enhances the experience. $1,500 worth of enhancement? No, not in my opinion. The most notable thing for me was the pancake lenses improvement over fresnel. I never want to go back to fresnel. It's basically 100% clear from edge to edge (a near 100% sweet spot). The issue though is you can still see the screen door effect as the per eye resolution is ALMOST EXACTLY the same as the Quest 2. So you have super clear lenses, but mediocre panels to take advantage of said lenses. The colors were also significantly better than Quest 2, but nowhere near OLED good.
We're looking at 30% likely resolution increase for Quest 3 with the same pancake lenses, so that's something to look forward to. Even more, we can look forward to Quest Pro 2 in 2024 which is rumored to have around 3500x3500 micro OLED panels to compete with Apple's late 2023/early 2024 device.