I fly 100% in VR, and don’t care at all how the external model looks. But I care greatly how the 3D cockpit visuals look, since that is where I spend all my time. Nothing kills VR immersion like a cartoony looking cockpit! I have to agree with the OP that for the most part, the default Asobo cockpits look significantly better than most of the payware offerings. I assume Asobo has graphics development tools for this sim that are not available to outside developers, which is likely the reason 3rd party developers struggle to match Asobo’s visual quality. I can only hope this situation changes in the future.
BTW, I am amazed at how many people responded to this thread - which clearly is 100% about visual quality of aircraft - to state that most payware aircraft have better system and flight modeling than the default Asobo aircraft. While I don’t disagree, I fail to see how it has ANY relevance to the intended discussion…