yes, i think so too: knowing which way the user is looking seems to be inherently necessary for panoramic narrative; better put perhaps, the ability to influence the user to look at specific areas of the panorama at specific times, is necessary.
Tatsu and i just submitted a proposal for the Tania Trepanier Award competition and it involves panoramic narrative. feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Perry - I've been having a similar process in creating hypertext. I, too, was weirded out by the video of the Japanese girls, because we weren't actually interacting with them in any way. I felt no different than if four different cameras had taken shots of each of the girls and I could just switch to each camera.

Why 360?

However, in Peggy's class, I'm working on a piece in which the reader can choose who's personal story to follow through the narrative. The reader can switch stories when characters come into contact with one another. However, what the reader doesn't know (but hopefully figures out) is that when you switch to another character, their situation improves, and everyone else's gets worse.

Maybe we could incorporate this into panoramic story-telling that isn't fly-on-the-wall?