VR in the 1990s lasted what, two years? Total $ investment in the hundreds of millions at best? No large corporation releasing headsets?

That's wildly different to today. It is still a niche platform for sure, but it's still here and hasn't gone in year three, and has tens of billions of dollars in investment across many large corporations, with a lot of advancements that are being made.

As for AR, it's never been tried before as a consumer product, so there was no previous attempt.