Earlier quoted context omitted.
the AR on the quest3 so far for me has been a convenient way for me to check my surroundings or do some little tasks without having to remove the headset, put it back again and re-adjust it. I don't have a quest 2 to compare with but this small gimmick seems like a small but important win to me.
You can do that with the pass through on the quest 2. It’s not pretty mind you. But it’s not intended to be anything more than safe guard in case you wonder outside the play boundary you defined. I’ve got to say, the Quest 2 is a really nice device. It’s obviously not super high quality compared to a lot of other headsets on the market but its compromises are generally well thought out.
On the Quest 2 I never used passthrough because it looked terrible. On Quest 3, I use it as my default lobby because it's just good enough to be preferable to being in AR instead of virtual environment when you're not gaming.