I'll grant that maybe the immersiveness will somehow lead to useful applications. The therapeautic example given by arrrgh above, for instance. I still don't see good examples of general applications, but I'm probably coming across as moving the goal posts and I don't want to be an unhelpful stick in the mud so I think I'm going to resign the thread shortly. But I have greatly appreciated the replies I've gotten.

I don't think immersiveness is necessarily a desirable property in entertainment. Movies, for instance, seem to be less immersive when they're more realistic (the Hobbit movie, for instance). There is something eerie about daytime soaps that arises partly out of their higher framerate. McLuhan did say something to the effect of movies being a "cool" media, meaning you could be absorbed into them. This characteristic seems to be inverse to higher detail. If I were to make a bald-faced guess, I would mumble something about higher sensory refinement taking processing away from appreciating the other aspects of the art. I don't think it's impossible that the fidelity we have today for film is essentially perfect as far as our perception and enjoyment goes--that is, after all, the case for music. This might sound like a controversial opinion here, amongst people who have inherent appreciation for the technical, but amongst our families I bet it will sound more plausible.

Anyway, thanks.