* My two cents worth... I've always wanted to try putting on a life vest: doing is far better than watching. Never got a chance to do so.
Why not have a "safety show" at some point during the flight, especially during boring long-haul, with a few dummy life vests available for interested pax to put on, and also dropping a couple of live oxygen masks, again for "hands-on experience?
Why not simply ask the crew on your next flight to try on the life jacket from the safety demo? Oxygen masks cannot be dropped as only engineering can re stow them, and once one mask is pulled, all the masks (on 737/757/A320 for certain) will be activated in that row, rendering that row of seats unusable. But there certainly shouldn't be a problem having a closer look at one of the demonstration masks.