So what's all the excitement about 2.8 ANYWAY? (VR sculpting)

You mean you aren’t aware theres already a version for blender? It’s been in development for a while:

There is also the blender OpenHMD Branch, that has been in development for even longer:

Plus, I saw a short clip of a presentation where they were showing off software that allows you to use any conventional app with a VR headset and input device. They used blender for that demo.

You are confusing the method of interaction with what an app does for you. There is nothing concerning VR headsets that would keep blender, or any other app from working with them. It’s just like using a wacom tablet instead of a mouse. The software just needs to be adjusted to support the new type of input device and display. Heck even vanilla blender supports multi-view display for headsets right now.

Edit: And I just realized that one of the current google summer of code projects is something that will add OpenXR support to blender:

So that’s three different APIs which all add VR support to blender.