Which version did you try? 2014 could have easily been DK1. I hear that it has improved a lot – vastly since DK1. As far as resolution is concerned, DK1 was 640x800 per eye, DK2 was 960x1080 and the consumer version will be 1080x1200.
Must have been dev kit 1 then. I assumed it was the best at the time since I was at SIGGRAPH and figured they would have the latest tech. They need to get rid of the pixels and cover your peripheral vision for it to really be immersive. Do you know if 1080x1200 is enough to do that when the screen is so close to your face?
DK2 was released in July, and SIGGRAPH was in August – could have conceivably been either, though probably DK1. I think that peripheral vision is something that you'd just get used to after using it for a while – no one seems particularly bothered about FoV any more. As far as pixel count is concerned, you're not going to be able to render anything decent at a higher resolution with current hardware anyway – the recommended minimum specs already cost about $1000. The latest resolution is pretty great for anything except text, as far as I've heard.