Played through the end of Chapter 2. It's beyond incredible that after over a decade I can honestly say this was worth the wait. The level of presentation here is mindblowing, somehow this is the best looking game ever made while running at the high framerates needed for VR. Put it on the Ultra preset and it runs without a hitch on my GTX 1080.
The Russells are Valve genius at its very best, sheer elegance. They did have a learning curve of a few minutes for me, which was worsened by how both the triggers and grips on the Rift CV1 Touch controllers can be used to grip objects. I fumbled for a bit trying to figure out how best to perform the pull and catch, being used to using the grip buttons to actually grip things, but not liking using the grips for both the pull and catch. I settled on using the triggers for the pull and the grips for the catch. I also had to figure out how much I had to open my hand to activate the soft lock on, at first thinking that pointing my index finger at what I wanted to pull would be best, but ultimately finding that a fairly relaxed hand posture is just fine. After that period of adjustment it was smooth sailing and by the end of my session it was second nature. It's amazing to experience as a layman player but I'm sure understanding what they're doing with it technically is even more impressive.
Gripping simple geometric objects is probably handled programmatically, but it seems like there are a ton of bespoke hand positions for more specific objects. Like, check out the number of ways you can grip a random empty boot. I can't believe they put in the work for that kind of detail, but I have no idea how else that could've been done. What a joy this is. Can't wait to continue.