re: It all sounds positively dreadful to me.
Funny, I was thinking of the anime Denno Coil (sorry I couldn't find any cool merchandise - it is a lot more obscure than Ghost in the Shell).
In it, people wear glasses that project a virtual world around them. Spaces are managed by servers so that the real world is augmented with virtual additions that you can see through the glasses.
I can't really recommend the series because I think the target audience is younger (Japanese) girls. I enjoyed it. It had several interesting scifi ideas.