Skeuomorphism is necessary to ease people into a radically new/different interface. Once they've grown accustomed to the new interface, then the skeuomorphism can be removed as it has gone from guidance to impediment. For VR, people aren't used to literally looking & moving around a 3D environment, so recreating the real world is necessary to ease them into the differences of the interface until they grasp it...THEN we can start changing what's perceived to express more abstract concepts.
For all the familiarity people have with the abstractions of interfaces on 2D screens, they're still just a flat limited surface within the space of our visual perception, and required skeuomorphism to ease people into familiarity therewith. VR is a massive change, which has to start by satisfying familiarity via sufficient imitation of the real world; once someone gets comfortable using it to the point of foregoing real scenarios in favor of virtual ones, then we can start tweaking the virtual to do things previously impossible and yet are natural extensions of their new understanding of the VR interface.
For all the familiarity people have with the abstractions of interfaces on 2D screens, they're still just a flat limited surface within the space of our visual perception, and required skeuomorphism to ease people into familiarity therewith. VR is a massive change, which has to start by satisfying familiarity via sufficient imitation of the real world; once someone gets comfortable using it to the point of foregoing real scenarios in favor of virtual ones, then we can start tweaking the virtual to do things previously impossible and yet are natural extensions of their new understanding of the VR interface.