The interesting thing about rendering a full (spherically-complete) panorama is that you can render the static aspects of the scene once, and you don't have to

The interesting thing about rendering a full (spherically-complete) panorama is that you can render the static aspects of the scene once, and you don't have to update until the view strafes in the XYZ direction (i.e. mouselook is free). I think this would be particularly useful for situations where you are locked in a seat (i.e. you could render the full cockpit once).