Not sure where you'd get the idea that Oculus isn't working on non-sexy problems, considering how many people Oculus has working on controls (Oculus Touch), motion sickness, and yes eye tracking too. Obviously Oculus is working on "head tracking" - that's been around since 2012.
Either way, you are correct: waiting to hear about the Vive is a good idea. VR in general (Vive, Rift, etc.) is very much an early adopter technology for the next couple years.
Minor note: AR is far from maturity. The FoV and resolution pales in comparison to VR. 30-degrees (like looking through a pinhole) versus 110-degrees is a massive difference that's hard to explain. AR and VR are like sister technologies that will one day converge.
AR approaching VR by improving FoV and resolution over the next decade, and VR approaching AR by improving real-world capture & scene reconstruction.