If anyone has any perspective on why we were so late to the game - I'd love to hear it. Perhaps it was the forming of the Helo Master Plan and mission alignment, introduction of MH-60 R and S, etc.
At least on the HSL side, it was before the HMP really solidified and my understanding was that HS was ahead of HSL slightly. My first squadron was flying with goggles in the mid-90's. I think they were the first ones to fly with them, but Japan was probably right behind them. Japan got Hellfires first, quickly followed by my squadron, so they were typically neck and neck with the new systems.
With all of the VBSS (and HVBSS for HS) that the community was doing, it made sense to have them, along with the FCK package (and eventually the Block 1 FLIR system).
Independent of VERTREP'ing, I was never super-jazzed about whether I had goggles when landing on the boat (small boy). They make the approach easier on most nights, but I'd rather not have them over the deck, as they get in the way. Coming back as a DH, I would find the younger guys that grew up on goggles since the HTs loved them, but once they were over the deck, they'd never move their head and would be very dependent on someone else landing them in the trap. Obviously that can be mitigated with training, but it was a trend I noticed.