I don't know why you think ray tracing is such a pipe dream. I've been quite enjoying every game using it since I got my 2080 Ti and even more so now that I have a 3090. What compromises are ray tracing bringing that other fancy, expensive graphical effects don't?
I see RT in the same light as I see PhysX.
When PhysX first came out, it required an accelerator card. Then even after it was purchased by nVidia, it still required an nVidia GPU for acceleration for a long while. Now... it's a middleware that doesn't require anything fancy.
Now, RT isn't exactly the same as physics software. But I think we will see some parallels.
I play exactly 0 games that support RT of any flavor. There are games on my radar that do support RT - but none of them ~require~ RT.
In the same vein that back in the day - a handful of high profile games supported PhysX acceleration, but none of them required it. At least until the API was tweaked to be scalable enough to run on something that didn't have acceleration available - now physics software (PhysX included) is everywhere, in almost every title, and will run (to some degree) on almost every machine.
It was cool to watch Batman's cape flutter in the wind and trash blow around, but it didn't fundamentally change the game. Now, every game supports that to some degree, and it doesn't require anything specific to run.
I think RT is going to take the same avenue. Today - it requires specific cards with high horsepower, and provides some graphical flare but nothing requires it. Tomorrow - probably will run on every GPU card produced, but still won't be "required". The day after - will run on a potato, nearly every title will have some RT to some degree, and we won't be talking about it anymore.
By the time we get to titles that require RT, the API will look completely different than it does today, the hardware will be completely different than today, and the GPU you bought today to run RT will be inconsequential. (And hopefully we can buy today's hardware by then...)
If you want to pay for the privilege of running RT now - I have no problem with you doing so. I applaud it, in fact, as it helps push it forward as a standard. But you shouldn't go assuming that everyone will be willing to pay hundreds (thousands) of dollars just to have better shadows and ultra-reflective mud puddles. For me, RT would be a bonus, but I will buy whatever is available, RT isn't even a consideration in that. And given the choice between rasterization speed and RT speed, I'd pick the faster rasterizing card every time, because (almost) ~every~ title requires rasterization to some degree, while only a handful support RT for some additional effects.
