Its important to recognise that when someone says the quality is better via virtual desktop and the SteamVR app they’re saying its better FOR THEM. It may not be better for everyone. There are advantages and disadvantages to both methods currently with the sim and VR performance. It all comes down to your hardware. Quality of experience in VR is very objective.
It may be true that the latest version of SteamVR is improved but I would need a lot of convincing before I go and try it. SteamVR gave me awful performance in the sim and the inability to not be able to run the tray tool and/or the debug tool meant that I couldn’t fine tune my headset going via the virtual desktop method.