VR did not take off, but for wildly different reasons than what you state.

A steam deck or a games console also need expensive special equipment (in form of the console) that has no other use. Still they are thriving.

They also need expensive powerful graphics hardware for good quality. (Also, standalone VR totally exists and is pretty good nowadays, to the point where I don’t see much of a reason to pair my headset to my PC, and I am still rocking a Quest 2. Considering you are quoting “a headset at the Microsoft store”, I venture to guess that you haven’t tried VR in over half a decade.)

You don’t need special equipment if you wear glasses for most headsets, you just wear your glasses inside the VR headset. Source: I have been doing that for years. Glasses compatible VR headsets are a thing and quite common.

VR doesn’t cause migraines, migraines are something different. They mainly cause tension headaches and motion sickness. Headsets with better balance (e.g. ones that move the battery to the back of the head or ones that are lighter) reduce tension headaches a lot, and motion sickness differs between people and with practice.

The wide open space is the only actual problem you identified, but also there, VR also works in sitting or stationary standing positions. Full roomscale VR is only required by rather few VR games or apps.

The real issues are:

• VR doesn’t have advantages for working. Like, none at all. Meta focussed a lot on working in VR, and that just doesn’t work. No advantage means no reason to do it.
• VR works for games, but the inability to develop cross-platform between VR and other platforms means that it’s almost completely restricted to VR-exclusives. There are a few non-VR-exclusives with a VR mode, but they usually don’t actually take advantage of VR, since they have to work on a flat screen too. This means, not a lot of games and the ones that exist are super low budget.
• Local multiplayer is very difficult for VR. If I want to do local multiplayer on a flat screen console or PC, I need another controller and a place for the second person to sit. For VR I need to buy a second console (headset) and need more floor space. VR multiplayer in the same room often leads to people hitting each other, so to play together it’s best to separate between rooms.
• Gaming is often used as a relaxing, chill experience. That doesn’t really work in VR, since VR games require you to move. You usually can’t just chill on the couch while playing VR.
• VR software and UX is still in its infancy. Compare that to flat screen games, which took about 20-30 years to actually become really good in therms of UX and gameplay. VR hasn’t had enough time yet to get there, but it’s also not something that can just be forced with more money.