Just guestimating, I would need 11 or 12 27" screens to fully utilize the area I can see without moving my head. With gentle neck motion included I think that number triples or quadruples.
If you switch windows every 60 seconds, this gives us an improvement of ~8%.
Table:
300s -> 1.5%
120s -> 4%
60s -> 8%
30s -> 16%
15s -> 32%
I have no idea what my average window switch time is. I should measure it sometime. I doubt it is under 30 seconds where the VR actually makes a meaningful improvement.
If you take an average of 2 seconds for non-VR and a skilled user with keyboard shortcuts and virtual desktops, VR advantage becomes insignificant.
Table:
300s -> 0.6%
120s -> 1.5%
60s -> 3%
30s -> 6%
15s -> 12%
If you compare a specialized window managing software versus the VR equivalent then I don't see any benefit towards the latter. The latency is the same. The only difference is the abstract windows management versus spacial of VR.
I think programmers can handle the non-VR solution just fine. I really hope it becomes better though; the resolution is currently just too small.