Da Vinci used to teach his students the skill of "seeing in" to a scene, even if it was a stucco wall -- so they could lose themselves in it and then release their imagination's free play capacities.
When I think of the requirements for "immersive" experience, I think of tonal and timbral accuracy -- an oboe sounding like an oboe. The notion that the gear must push me into immersion seems like a way of releasing myself from the necessary mental skill which Da Vinci was trying to teach his students. It's a way of game-ifying and Disney-fying the sound.