I have a Valve Index, and for the most part my experience has been really good. I do recommend using an AMD GPU if you are investing in a VR system. I currently have a Nvidia GPU, and the main issue is the lack of async reprojection support.
Lots of games work great, Skyrim VR, Alyx, Contractors, No Mans Sky VR, Boneworks, you name it!
It seems like almost all the improvements are being made on the Steam OS side. The next Steam OS update (3.5) should have some wonderful new features related to shader compilation, etc. Valve can really tune the OS to the device and they’ll continue to do so.
Yes it’s true that you can’t play specific games - but there are so many games that you can play. Eventually as SteamDeck becomes more common you’ll see more and more mainstream support.
I’ll definitely stick with Steam OS.