That said, this image is amazing, and lets you see a lot more detail than you can easily manage at the museum.
Particularly true about the Sistine Chapel. This virtual view is outstanding, but can't possibly come anything close to seeing it in person. https://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.htm...
A couple of years ago I did a trip to Belgium and France. Saw all of the sights, loads of museums, and did a tonne of wandering. It was a great time, but was overwhelming. I came home and maybe a week later we were browsing YouTube on the TV and came across a channel that just walks around neighbourhoods of Japan (e.g. Shibuya, Tokyo, among others. The channel is Virtual Japan). A couple of hours of walking a stabilized camera through the streets of a Japanese city. My son came in and watched with me while we looked at storefronts, read restaurant menus, walked through malls, virtually participated in pedestrian scrambles, etc). The weirdest thing is that days later my "trip" to Japan felt much more real than my trip to Belgium and France (or any prior trip I'd ever taken). Absent all of the worries and hustle and overwhelming inputs, somehow this completely not real experience felt much more real, and to this day I feel like I've been to Japan, while so many other countries that I've physically been to and experienced for weeks seem like almost a dream. It really was a fascinating experience for me.
It made me wonder if there is a business in on-demand telepresence for this sort of virtual travel. "Uber" someone technologically enabled to walk around an area, look at things you want and follow directions. Add some dystopian elements to it and soon they're getting in fights at your request.
Having said that, before visiting the Sistine Chapel, I had indeed studied the imagery on my computer, poring over many of the details ahead of time. I knew that giving my brain some time to ingest, digest, and comprehend the enormity of what I was about to see would be beneficial. And I suppose in much the same way you studied the streets of a Japanese city, I had a similar experience with the Sistine Chapel.
And perhaps here's my somewhat contrarian point to your contrarian point... :-) Seeing it in person lit up the right side of my brain whereas the virtual tour on the computer was more of a left-brained experience. Standing in the same room Michaelangelo stood (and lay on his back) for four years was indescribable. The light that bounced off that ceiling and into my eyes was different than the light emitted from my computer's LCD monitor. Visually exploring it with my 12-year-old daughter and sharing it through her eyes was great. It was a fantastic experience, one I will always treasure. I hope to see it again someday.
Makes me think I should look it up more, because I absolutely did not.
Some parts were crowded, other parts were not, I enjoyed the art but hmmm. To me the Swiss Guard tradition was more interesting and fascinating, and some of the graves had fascinating designs on them.