Not the same thing at all. Smartphones have reached the point where further improvements are largely superficial for years now. Pinephone's price point is only possible because of over a decade of the proliferation of cheap smartphone components.

Consumer VR headsets are nowhere close to that point. The Quest 2 is right at the edge of usably clear text for work - with a price point that is only possible through the backing of a giant corporation desperately gambling their future on their whole metaverse shtick.

Trying to do better means requiring optics and display technology that is going to drive that price point up, especially for a hackable headset that is automatically going to rule out monetisation through user data.

tldr: nobody should care about providing cheap hardware to entitled "hackers" at their own loss. Hardware doesn't grow on trees.