Would vinyl even be invented today?

Records, cartridges and tonearms seem like such an unlikely method to play music--a bit of Rube Goldberg. Would anyone even dream of this today? It's like the typewriter keyboard--the version we have may not be the best, but it stays due to the path dependence effect. If vinyl evolved from some crude wax cylinder to a piece of rock careening off walls of vinyl, hasn't it reached the limits of the approach? Not trying to be critical--just trying to get my head around it.