Never in my 42 years have I heard anyone explain siphons working from atmospheric pressure. Obviously it is gravity. The same atmospheric pressure exists at both ends of the hose.
Only they're also known targets, and should be able to be easily programmed for, as a result. Performance for 1920x1080 shouldn't be an issue for any title on the hardware available. It boggles the mind at how poor these developers must be if they can't even target known hardware, console-style, and get good performance out of the thing. Average PC game devs don't seem to have any problem doing so on the PC, and that's a moving target. Why would any competent devs have a problem with a fixed target? They've got decent CPUs. They've got decent GPUs. They've got a decent amount of RAM. Yet they found a way to get horrible performance out of it. Send in the firing squad.
Plenty of 'iRacers' have multiple 3D monitors. It works fine.
I have no doubt that your 'sense of presence' might be better with a VR headset, but to say I will not get a sense of presence with three monitors in front of me is ridiculous. You say don't discount VR's VRness. I say don't discount wide FOV for vastly improving the immersiveness factor, too. My view of the race track in this particular sim (thanks to its display calculator in the graphics options) gives me a 1:1 view of the sim world. It would look exactly the same to me if I were in that car at that track in the real world, save for the fact that I would have a full FOV in all directions rather than just the monitors in front of me.
Believe me, once the racing starts I am in that world. I completely lose the fact that I'm looking at monitors because of how much of my FOV it is taking up. The bezel gaps disappear. I fail to notice anything beyond the monitors' display area. A good VR headset *with* as much or greater FOV would be even better, yes. But I would not want a VR headset with less FOV than I have now, no matter what else the headset brings to the table in terms of immersiveness. FOV is too important, and trumps all the other headset pluses, for me, with this usage.
I'm always looking for a new idea that will be more productive than its cost. -- David Rockefeller