This is more along the line of the type of virtual experiences I am most interested in. Different techniques of balancing user and object load, partitioning objects for fast retrieval from storage. I have no doubt the low latency storage and retrieval technologies now exist to do things that could never be done before. All it will take is smart people to put the pieces together.
The biggest thing I got from SL was that the illusion of a truly boundless and endless world within our real world was very compelling, and the use cases were nearly infinite. That feeling of awe has stuck with me to this day and is with me behind every UML diagram and boring state chart I churn out.
Hang in there. There are a lot of dreamers in here as well as some very smart people that want to push this envelope to the edge.