SL was a milestone in what it's trying to do but I'm not all that sure if its intentions are any more crazy or sad than AOL-era chat rooms and online communities- some of which were also graphical. VRML was developed for chat rooms in the late '90s. The only difference with SL is that it was developed later on in history and further along late capitalism, I guess.
I'm not referring to the intentions or what it was/is trying to do, but to the reality of its userbase and how they play the game and live their life. I mean, as a whole gaming tends to be similarly 'sad', but not to as large an extent as SL (in my opinion, of course).